BunkerCoin

A low-bandwidth, shortwave radio-compatible blockchain protocol using Alpenglow consensus.

Validators run Alpenglow consensus over real HF radio links (PACTOR modems), with persistent state, native transactions and tokens. A private testnet backs the explorer and the wallet.

Contributions welcomed!

Quick Start

Run a node pair locally (no radios)

Two validators over a simulated half-duplex PACTOR link:

cargo run -p bunker_coin_sim --bin pactor_consensus -- --simulated --half-duplex --rpc

• The RPC is served on http://localhost:3001 (override with BUNKER_RPC_ADDR)
• See Explorer API Spec and Wallet RPC for endpoints

Run on air

Two SCS Dragon DR-7400 PACTOR modems on two machines, one node per machine:

cargo build --release -p bunker_coin_sim --bin pactor_consensus
target/release/pactor_consensus --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --node 0 --mycall NODE0 --peercall NODE1 --frequency 14050.0 --reset --rpc
target/release/pactor_consensus --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --node 1 --mycall NODE1 --peercall NODE0 --frequency 14050.0 --reset

Each node keeps its RocksDB state under ./data/ in its working directory, so give every node its own directory. Full guide: Running consensus over PACTOR.

Repo Overview

• crates/core (bunker_coin_core): accounts, transactions (transfers, tokens, staking), execution state, epochs
• crates/bunkerglow: Alpenglow consensus (Votor, Rotor, repair, BLS certificates, RocksDB storage), forked from the reference implementation
• crates/radio: radio networking: PACTOR framing, link mux, Reed-Solomon coding, simulated HF network
• crates/scs_pactor: SCS PACTOR modem driver (USB serial hostmode, TCP, simulator)
• crates/rpc: REST + WebSocket explorer API and Solana-style JSON-RPC for wallets
• crates/sim: the node binary (pactor_consensus), simulations and hardware probes
• crates/vara, crates/lora_gateway, crates/gateway: VARA TNC client, LoRa transaction ingest and a simulated relay, not yet wired into the node

Apps

The web apps live in a bun workspace under apps/:

• apps/explorer: block explorer (Next.js)
• apps/wallet: local-only web wallet (Next.js static export)
• apps/homepage: the website at bunkercoin.com (Next.js on Cloudflare via OpenNext)
• apps/app: the web app (Next.js on Cloudflare via OpenNext)
• packages/*: shared UI components and ESLint/TypeScript configs for the website apps

The Ledger hardware wallet app (C, Ledger SDK) lives in ledger/; see ledger/README.md.

bun install
bun run dev:explorer
bun run dev:wallet
bun run build

Radio Networking

On air, nodes talk PACTOR between SCS DR-7400 modems over HF, with no internet. The modem arbitrates half-duplex turns, and the node paces writes to the on-air rate and rides out fades with link-liveness and repair.

The simulated network models HF (shortwave) conditions:

• Global Bandwidth >> 50-2400 bps (depending on conditions)
• Packet Loss >> 5-50% (ionospheric effects)
• Latency >> 100-1000ms (propagation) ++ jitter

Erasure coding: Rotor splits blocks into 4 data / 6 total shreds of 1 KiB; the radio layer adds Reed-Solomon (2 data + 4 parity).

API

• Explorer API Spec: REST + WebSocket on :3001
• Wallet RPC: Solana-style JSON-RPC 2.0 and the native transaction format

Next Steps

1. VARA and LoRa transports in the node
2. More than two validators on air
3. Remainders from the BunkerCoin spec
   ... (many more)

Core contributors welcomed! If you'd like to help shape the protocol from the ground up, get in touch.

References

• Alpenglow (A true piece of art)
• BunkerCoin Whitepaper: bunker_coin.tex
• BunkerCoin Whitepaper (PDF)

Building

Ensure you have a recent stable Rust toolchain installed.

rustup update stable
cargo check

The testnet is private and nothing is stabilised yet, expect rapid iteration.