HowTo Setup vBFI

See: Main_Page

Background

vBFI provides the equivalent number of Bitcoin confirmations that a VeriBlock block (and the transactions it contains) has.

Third parties require specific numbers of confirmations to confirm a transaction (for example, an exchange accepting incoming deposits). In general, a higher number of confirmations corresponds to more security, with the trade-off of longer waiting period.

vBFI provides the best of both worlds:

1. Much more security: Bitcoin level security (which depending on the chain can be 100x+ the security that would normally be available after 2 hours).
2. Less wait time: About 2 hours under normal network conditions.

Useful links:

• https://veriblock.org/vbfi - official home page
• https://vbfi.veriblock.org/ - live UI control for vBFI (this link may change, and will be integrated into the explorer)
• How_VeriBlock_PoP_vBFI_Protects_Altchains

How to set up

vBFI is contained within NodeCore. It is an optional plugin, not run by default (to conserve resources).

It is available with 0.4.13-rc8 and later (TODO - this is a pre-release). Requires both NodeCore and NodeCore CLI to be 0.4.13-rc8+ (older versions of NC_CLI may not return the new fields)

1. Run a full NodeCore instance: NodeCore_QuickStart
2. Add file bfi.conf
3. In nodecore.properties, set bfi.enabled=true

If you run getdiagnosticinfo, you will see this flag enabled.

bfi.conf

Put this next to 'nodecore.properties' file:

bfi {
    blockChainNetwork = mainnet
    nodeCoreRpcHost = "127.0.0.1:10500"
    httpApiBindPort = 4567
    httpApiNotificationsTest = true
    forkThreatThreshold = 2
    forkThreatRatioThreshold = 0.8
}

nodecore.properties

# Enable BFI
bfi.enabled=true

Get results

bitcoinConfirmations for each transaction

This is available per transaction via the bitcoinConfirmations field.

Below is a sample transaction that is a few hours old. Note that a very recent transaction (such as 5 minutes old) will still show bitcoinConfirmations: -11, as Bitcoin Finality has not been achieved yet.

gettransaction 2AB3811FD0EDE3B3F89A50926B15AA4C0C2370A4467E6670635A19E5A1CD3AF3 5000

...
"bitcoinConfirmations": 4,
...

There is also a JavaScript sample to call the HTTP API for gettransactions:

https://github.com/VeriBlock/nodecore-js/blob/master/packages/core/example/3_get_bfi_score.js

API results

Two supported APIs are:

#Summary ping that 
<instance>/api/ping

#detailed chain data
<instance>/api/chains

End-to-end example

If a transaction occurs in block 2713020, and the UI control shows that has "BTC+3", that is equivalent to "3 Bitcoin confirmations," meaning if an attacker wanted to reverse that transaction would have to perform a 3-block reorganization on Bitcoin (in addition to simultaneously reorging approximately 250-300 VBK blocks). In other words, the transaction has the same (technically, higher) security as a transaction on Bitcoin itself with 3 confirmations.

For example, if a service required "3 Bitcoin confirmations" worth of security to deposit Bitcoin, then that service would want "BTC+3".

When checking the specific transaction, it would also show "BTC+3".

Docker setup

version: '3'
services:
  nodecore:
    container_name: nodecore
    image: docker-internal.veriblock.com/nodecore:0.4.13-rc.8
    expose:
      - 7500 # p2p
      - 10500 # rpc
      - 10600 # api
      - 4567 # bfi
    ports:
      - "7501:7501"
      - "10500:10500"
      - "127.0.0.1:10600:10600"
      - "127.0.0.1:4567:4567"
    volumes:
      - /root/VeriBlock:/data:Z
    environment:
      - NODECORE_LOG_PATH=/data/logs/
      - NODECORE_LOG_LEVEL=INFO

^ In the above case configuration needs to be placed in /root/VeriBlock