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Nimbus beacon chain is a research implementation of the beacon chain component of the upcoming Ethereum Serenity upgrade, aka Eth2. See the main [Nimbus](https://github.com/status-im/nimbus/) project for the bigger picture.
Nimbus is currently going through interoperability testing with several other beacon chain implementations - several tools are available to make this testing easier:
* [multinet](https://github.com/status-im/nim-beacon-chain/tree/master/multinet) - a set of scripts to build and run several Eth2 clients locally
* [ncli](https://github.com/status-im/nim-beacon-chain/tree/master/multinet) - command line tools for working with SSZ files and state transitions
* [ethereum/eth2.0-specs](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/blob/v0.9.1/specs/core/0_beacon-chain.md): Serenity specification that this project implements
You can check where the beacon chain fits in the Ethereum research ecosystem in the [Status Athenaeum](https://github.com/status-im/athenaeum/blob/b465626cc551e361492e56d32517b2cdadd7493f/ethereum_research_records.json#L38).
To run a command that might use binaries from the Status Nim fork:
```bash
./env.sh bash # start a new interactive shell with the right env vars set
which nim
nim --version
# or without starting a new interactive shell:
./env.sh which nim
./env.sh nim --version
```
#### Windows
_(Experimental support!)_
Install Mingw-w64 for your architecture using the "[MinGW-W64 Online
Installer](https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/)" (first link
under the directory listing). Run it and select your architecture in the setup
menu ("i686" on 32-bit, "x86\_64" on 64-bit), set the threads to "win32" and
the exceptions to "dwarf" on 32-bit and "seh" on 64-bit. Change the
installation directory to "C:\mingw-w64" and add it to your system PATH in "My
Computer"/"This PC" -> Properties -> Advanced system settings -> Environment
Variables -> Path -> Edit -> New -> C:\mingw-w64\mingw64\bin (it's "C:\mingw-w64\mingw32\bin" on 32-bit)
Install [Git for Windows](https://gitforwindows.org/) and use a "Git Bash" shell to clone and build nim-beacon-chain.
If you don't want to compile RocksDB and SQLite separately, you can fetch pre-compiled DLLs with:
```bash
mingw32-make # this first invocation will update the Git submodules
mingw32-make fetch-dlls # this will place the right DLLs for your architecture in the "build/" directory
```
You can now follow those instructions in the previous section by replacing `make` with `mingw32-make` (regardless of your 32-bit or 64-bit architecture):
The beacon node simulation will create a full peer-to-peer network of beacon nodes and validators, and run the beacon chain in real time. To change network parameters such as shard and validator counts, see [start.sh](tests/simulation/start.sh).
_Alternatively, fire up our [experimental Vagrant instance with Nim pre-installed](https://our.status.im/setting-up-a-local-vagrant-environment-for-nim-development/) and give us yout feedback about the process!_
The state transition simulator can quickly run the Beacon chain state transition function in isolation and output JSON snapshots of the state. The simulation runs without networking and blocks are processed without slot time delays.
For more information about the testnet and to find out how to launch your own, see [this announcement](https://our.status.im/the-nimbus-mvp-testnet-is-here/) and the [official docs on launching the testnets](https://nimbus.status.im/docs/t0.html).