Blockchain Lite
A collection of Ruby libraries and tools for building and interacting with blockchains, including cryptography, ABI handling, and contract services.
What is Blockchain Lite?
Blockchain.lite.rb is a collection of Ruby libraries and tools designed for blockchain development, particularly for Ethereum and similar platforms. It provides implementations of cryptographic functions, ABI handling, and blockchain interaction utilities, enabling developers to build and interact with blockchains using Ruby. The project solves the need for lightweight, dependency-free Ruby tools in the blockchain ecosystem.
Ruby developers interested in blockchain development, smart contract integration, or learning blockchain fundamentals through hands-on libraries. It's also suitable for educators creating blockchain examples in Ruby.
Developers choose this for its pure Ruby implementations with zero dependencies, making it easy to integrate and modify. It offers a comprehensive set of tools from cryptography to contract services, all within a consistent Ruby-centric approach.
Overview
blockchain (crypto) tools, libraries & scripts in ruby
Use Cases
Best For
- Implementing cryptographic functions like ECDSA in Ruby
- Handling Ethereum smart contract ABIs without external tools
- Building educational blockchain examples in Ruby
- Interacting with Ethereum JSON-RPC APIs
- Creating custom blockchains or Merkle trees from scratch
- Developing lightweight blockchain applications with minimal dependencies
Not Ideal For
- High-performance applications where cryptographic speed is critical, as pure Ruby implementations may lag behind C-based alternatives.
- Teams requiring production-ready, fully-featured blockchain frameworks with extensive tooling and commercial support.
- Projects that need tight integration with non-Ruby ecosystems or multi-language smart contract deployment pipelines.
- Developers seeking out-of-the-box solutions for complex blockchain operations like peer-to-peer networking, as some gems are still in alpha.
Pros & Cons
Pros
All gems are built with no external dependencies, making integration into Ruby projects straightforward and reducing compatibility issues, as highlighted in the project's philosophy.
Provides implementations of ECDSA, Keccak, SHA3, and more from scratch or via OpenSSL, offering a full suite of cryptographic functions essential for blockchain development in Ruby.
Includes multiple gems like abicoder and abidoc for encoding, decoding, parsing, and generating documentation for Ethereum contract ABIs, simplifying smart contract interactions.
Comes with runnable applications such as centralbank and tulipmania, allowing developers to learn blockchain concepts through practical simulations and experiments.
Cons
Pure Ruby implementations, like those in digest-lite, may not match the speed of C-based alternatives, potentially affecting performance in resource-intensive applications.
Some components, such as the p2p gem, are listed as 'in progress / alpha' in the README, indicating missing or unstable functionality for peer-to-peer networking.
Focused solely on Ruby, which restricts its use in polyglot environments where tools in languages like JavaScript or Python might be more prevalent or better supported.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
MoneyTreeA Ruby implementation of Bitcoin HD Wallets (Hierarchical Deterministic) BIP32
CiriCiri is an Ethereum implementation written in Ruby.
PeatioOpen-source crypto currency exchange software
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