How to create a genesis for your chain

This guide will walk you through the process of setting up a genesis for your chain. Follow the steps below to initialize your chain, add a genesis account, and start the chain.

Pre-requisities

For this guide you need to have a chain directory where you have created and built your chain.

If you don't have a chain directory yet, you can initialize a simple ignite chain by following this tutorial

TIP

This guide will use the simple ignite chain created in linked guide. Make sure to update any relevant variables to match your chain.

1. Setting variables

First, set the necessary variables for your chain in the terminal, here is an example:

VALIDATOR_NAME=validator1
CHAIN_ID=gm
KEY_NAME=chain-key
CHAINFLAG="--chain-id ${CHAIN_ID}"
TOKEN_AMOUNT="10000000000000000000000000stake"
STAKING_AMOUNT="1000000000stake"

Rebuild your chain

Ensure that .gm folder is present at /Users/you/.gm (if not, follow a Guide to set it up) and run the following command to (re)generate an entrypoint binary out of the code:

make install

Once completed, run the following command to ensure that the /Users/you/.gm directory is present:

ignite evolve init

This (re)creates an gmd binary that will be used for the rest of the tutorials to run all the operations on the chain.

Resetting existing genesis/chain data

Reset any existing chain data:

gmd comet unsafe-reset-all

Reset any existing genesis data:

rm -rf $HOME/.$CHAIN_ID/config/gentx
rm $HOME/.$CHAIN_ID/config/genesis.json

Initializing the validator

Initialize the validator with the chain ID you set:

gmd init $VALIDATOR_NAME --chain-id $CHAIN_ID

Adding a key to keyring backend

Add a key to the keyring-backend:

gmd keys add $KEY_NAME --keyring-backend test

Adding a genesis account

Add a genesis account with the specified token amount:

gmd genesis add-genesis-account $KEY_NAME $TOKEN_AMOUNT --keyring-backend test

Setting the staking amount in the genesis transaction

Set the staking amount in the genesis transaction:

gmd genesis gentx $KEY_NAME $STAKING_AMOUNT --chain-id $CHAIN_ID --keyring-backend test

Collecting genesis transactions

Collect the genesis transactions:

gmd genesis collect-gentxs

Configuring the genesis file

Copy the centralized sequencer address into genesis.json:

ADDRESS=$(jq -r '.address' ~/.$CHAIN_ID/config/priv_validator_key.json)
PUB_KEY=$(jq -r '.pub_key' ~/.$CHAIN_ID/config/priv_validator_key.json)
jq --argjson pubKey "$PUB_KEY" '.consensus["validators"]=[{"address": "'$ADDRESS'", "pub_key": $pubKey, "power": "1000", "name": "Evolve Sequencer"}]' ~/.$CHAIN_ID/config/genesis.json > temp.json && mv temp.json ~/.$CHAIN_ID/config/genesis.json

Starting the chain

Finally, start the chain with your start command.

For example, start the simple ignite chain with the following command:

gmd start --evolve.node.aggregator --chain_id $CHAIN_ID

Summary

By following these steps, you will set up the genesis for your chain, initialize the validator, add a genesis account, and started the chain. This guide provides a basic framework for configuring and starting your chain using the gm-world binary. Make sure you initialized your chain correctly, and use the gmd command for all operations.