Networks and endpoints

NULL runs one public network, mainnet, and a separate test network for development. This page lists the parameters that matter to node operators and integrators, the default ports and data directories, and the public services built around the chain.

Mainnet

Mainnet is live. Release v0.1.8 is current; see Network upgrades for how rule changes are scheduled.

A coinbase reward mined at height h becomes spendable at height h + 100. Wallets only see a reward once it matures. Seed hostnames are resolved each time they are dialed, so a node needs no configuration to find the network.

Emission

The development fund address is null1z0z9psxvllg396329fcj546gt3dya32zjcxf3w3gg78x2lgffxhgz2snzw6wuwzk930pzv4cvfn. Its key is held offline.

Fees

There is no fee field. The fee is fixed by the number of actions in a transaction: 10,000 units per action. Transactions are padded to 2, 4, 8 or 16 actions, so the fee is 20,000, 40,000, 80,000 or 160,000 units. A wallet spending many small notes moves into a larger action class and pays more; consolidating inputs avoids that.

Confirmations

The network refuses reorganizations deeper than 200 blocks, so 200 confirmations is safe against anything the network will accept. Ten confirmations, about twenty minutes, is a reasonable threshold for ordinary deposits. Exchanges should read the exchange guide and pools the pool guide for crediting and payout rules.

Test network

The test network uses a tiny proof of work and short blocks so a single machine can mine, pay and confirm in seconds.

The test network has no public seeds: pass --connect or --seed to reach another node. Its premine pays the account 0 key of the all-zero seed phrase, which is published, so anyone can fund a test wallet from it. Test network transactions are never valid on mainnet, because the two networks sign under different branch ids.

Default ports

All local services bind to 127.0.0.1 by default. Only the peer port is meant to be reachable from the internet.

A node without --listen connects out only. To accept peers, see Run a node.

Data directories

nulld, null-wallet-rpc and the desktop wallet share one per-user data directory when no path flags are given.

Inside it, each network has its own directory, main/ or test/:

Only one process can open a database at a time, so stop the desktop wallet before running nulld run on the same chain, and the other way around. On Unix, new directories are created owner-only (0700) and token files 0600.

Public services

The explorer API reports the height it has indexed and the state of its node, which is a quick way to compare your own node's tip with the network:

curl -s https://explorer.nullnet.sh/v1/status

{
  "network": "main",
  "indexed_height": 6206,
  "indexed_hash": "00000fc8d37f816b43e79acbaba7d736adbbcbfdca48182361e0dd943a456273",
  "node_height": 6206,
  "node_syncing": false,
  "node_connections": 43,
  "last_pass_at": 1793000988
}