Testnet

Run It Yourself

l1_node is a real, running prototype of the Pay3 chain — not a simulation. This walks through running your own copy locally: start the chain, create a wallet, send a transaction, check balances and history.

This is a teaching/prototype skeleton, not a production chain. It's genuinely useful for exercising the full wallet → RPC → mempool → block → balance loop end to end — see Current Limitations for exactly what's simplified before treating anything here as durable.

On this page

Prerequisites Start the node The wallet CLI Quick reference Troubleshooting

Prerequisites

Two programs are involved, in two separate terminal windows — one stays running, one is where you type commands.

Program	Language	Job
`l1_node`	Rust	The actual blockchain — mempool, blocks, state. Listens on http://localhost:8080.
`client/wallet.js`	Node.js	A CLI wallet that talks to the node over that RPC.

You'll need cargo (Rust) and node installed. If cargo isn't available: apt-get install cargo rustc on Linux, or see rust-lang.org/tools/install.

Start the node

In terminal window #1:

bash

cd l1_node
cargo run

First run compiles everything (~1 minute). Once it's up, you'll see something like:

text

================  l1_node dev chain  ================
faucet address : 0xede5a99fe4860f75b23dfe4c55a824c3dddf7354
faucet privkey : 0xf1481336...  (dev only, do not reuse)
faucet balance : 1000000
block time     : 3s
rpc listening  : http://0.0.0.0:8080
=======================================================

Leave this running — it's now sealing a new block every 3 seconds and listening on port 8080. Copy the faucet address and private key: that account starts with 1,000,000 units and is the only funded account at genesis, so everything else gets funded from it.

The wallet CLI

In terminal window #2, set up the wallet tool (installs ethers, same library the Pay3 Wallet uses):

bash

cd l1_node/client
npm install

Create a wallet — a brand new, unfunded account. Save the private key, it's the only way to spend from it later.

bash

node wallet.js new

Check its balance (will be 0 — nothing received yet):

bash

node wallet.js balance <address>

Get funded from the faucet:

bash

node wallet.js send <faucet_privkey> <your_new_address> <amount>

Wait ~3–5 seconds for the next block to seal, then check the balance again to confirm it landed.

Send a transaction from your own wallet to any other address:

bash

node wallet.js send <your_privkey> <to_address> <amount>

View history — every transaction an address has been part of, either direction, oldest first:

bash

node wallet.js history <address>

Quick reference

What you want	Command
Start the chain	`cargo run` (from `l1_node/`)
Create a wallet	`node wallet.js new`
Check a balance	`node wallet.js balance <address>`
View history	`node wallet.js history <address>`
Send funds	`node wallet.js send <privkey> <to> <amount>`
Send with a specific nonce	`node wallet.js send <privkey> <to> <amount> <nonce>`
Dump the whole chain (debug)	`curl http://localhost:8080/chain`

All commands accept RPC_URL=http://otherhost:8080 before them if the node isn't on localhost — useful once it's deployed, see Deploying.

Troubleshooting

ECONNREFUSED from wallet.js — the node isn't running, or crashed. Check that terminal window for an error.
"bad nonce" on send — someone else's transaction from that address already used that nonce. Omit the nonce argument and let wallet.js auto-fill the current one.
"insufficient balance" — check wallet.js balance first; you're trying to send more than the account holds.
Balance/history not updated right after sending — normal, wait for the next block (every 3 seconds).
Restarted the node and balances reset to zero — expected. State is in-memory only, see Current Limitations.

Tech Stack

Deploying