Liberdus

Introduction

Liberdus is a payment network and the first application to be built with the Shardus distributed ledger framework. We are building this payment network to enable people to govern their own money; and as a result, participate in a more fair and sustainable economy.

For millennia, money has existed in some form or another. Money has made it easy for individuals, governments, and businesses to transact with one another. Over time, our money has evolved and gone through many different forms: metal, paper, and now even digital. During the same timeframe in the western world, our governments have evolved from feudal, totalitarian states, to more and more democratic forms of government. However, our money and its rules remain relatively un-democratic. But… We believe it can be different.

The Liberdus team believes a more democratic form of money can be achieved with the use of distributed ledger technologies and an on-chain governance system – so that every decision about the rules of the money is made by the people who use it. This is what the Liberdus project aims to achieve.

For more info, please checkout our Whitepaper

Installation

Prerequisites

1. Node.js v20.19.3 (recommended via nvm):

   nvm install 20.19.3

2. Build tools (Linux):

   sudo apt-get install -y build-essential libssl-dev pkg-config

3. Rust 1.82 – rustup:

   rustup default 1.82

   Or install the latest Rust and use rustup default 1.82 if you need this exact version.
4. npm (included with Node.js; update with npm install -g npm if needed)
5. Shardus CLI: npm install -g shardus@4.3.1

Clone, install, and run (quick start)

git clone https://github.com/Liberdus/server.git
cd server
npm install

Start the network (e.g. with 10 nodes):

shardus create 10

Stop the network:

shardus stop

Clean the network (remove residual files and instance data):

shardus clean
rm -rf instances

For demos, testing, etc.

1. Clone this repository with git clone https://gitlab.com/liberdus/server.git
2. Checkout the dist branch with git checkout dist
3. Install dependencies with npm i
4. Compile with npm run compile

For Liberdus/Shardus development:

1. Ensure you have access to shardus-global-server
2. Make sure your git installation is set to cache credentials with git config --global credential.helper cache
3. Force git to prompt for credentials by cloning shardus-global-server:
   git clone https://gitlab.com/shardus/global/shardus-global-server.git
4. In another directory, clone this repository with git clone https://gitlab.com/liberdus/server.git
5. Install dependencies with npm i
6. Compile with npm run compile

Usage

• Start a network: shardus create {# of nodes} (e.g. shardus create 10) – starts local Liberdus nodes and apps.
• Stop the network: shardus stop – stops all nodes and apps.
• Clean the network: shardus clean – cleans residual files and folders from archiver and monitor-server. Then run rm -rf instances to remove the instances folder so you can start a fresh network.

Shardus Monitor - http://localhost:3000 Liberdus Client - http://localhost:3333 Archive Server - http://localhost:4000 Liberdus Explorer - http://localhost:4444

Interacting with the network via client.js

Run the client script to connect to a node and interact with the network:

node client.js localhost:9002

Replace localhost:9002 with the host and port of any node in your network (e.g. localhost:9001, localhost:9003).

For detailed instructions on how to play around (creating accounts, registering, transfers, messages between two accounts, and using the HTTP API), see the comment block at the top of client.js.

Creating a key pair for testing

Create a public/private key pair and add the public key to the server config so you can use the client for testing:

1. Generate a key pair:

node -e "
const crypto = require('@shardus/lib-crypto-utils');
crypto.init('69fa4195670576c0160d660c3be36556ff8d504725be8a59b5a96509e0c994bc');
const pair = crypto.generateKeypair();
console.log('PUBLIC_KEY:', pair.publicKey);
console.log('SECRET_KEY:', pair.secretKey);
" 2>&1

2. Add the PUBLIC_KEY to src/config/index.ts in the devPublicKeys object (and multisigKeys if needed) with DevSecurityLevel.High.

3. Set environment variables for the client script (use the values from step 1):

   • DEV_PUBLIC_KEY – your public key
   • DEV_PRIVATE_KEY – your secret key

Then run node client.js localhost:9002 to interact with the network.

Querying the node via HTTP (account, transactions, chatId / messages)

You can query account data, transactions, and messages directly from any node using HTTP (e.g. in a browser or with curl).

• Account – get account info by account ID (address):

  curl "http://localhost:9002/account/7e79d53c067e9d0a095c9675db38330ec72ffd5b000000000000000000000000"

  Replace the long hex string with the account ID (public key / address) you want to look up.

• Account transactions – list transactions for an account:

  curl "http://localhost:9004/account/f43eb22eb9ca0afe5f0fc620ba1ac932711eefe000000000000000000000000/transactions"

  Use your node host/port and the account ID.

• Messages (chat) – get messages for a chat; the chatId is the first path segment after /messages/:

  curl "http://localhost:9002/messages/7569adbc2fd289d0e613eb488c7968988c41a5d8c2a1e1c4c038038d7c957955/0"

  The response is JSON with a messages array; each message includes chatId, from, message (body/handle/timestamp), and signature fields. The chatId is derived from the two participants’ addresses (sorted and hashed). You can obtain it from the client when using message poll <alias> or from a previous message response.