Building HieraChain: A Hierarchical Blockchain Framework for Enterprise as a Student Side Project

#blockchain #python #rust #go

Hi everyone,I'm a third-year software engineering student, and over the past year, I've been working solo on an open-source project called HieraChain – a blockchain framework designed specifically for enterprise applications, with no connection to cryptocurrency.

Why I Started This Project

Like many students, I got curious about blockchain during my distributed systems courses. But most resources and projects out there focus heavily on crypto, DeFi, or public ledgers like Ethereum. I saw a gap: many real-world business processes (supply chain tracking, compliance auditing, multi-organization workflows) could benefit from secure, hierarchical distributed systems – without the volatility or speculation of tokens.

That's why HieraChain is built around a hierarchical structure: A Main Chain oversees multiple Sub-Chains, and it uses an event-based model (processing "events" instead of transactions) to better fit business workflows.

Key Features and Tech Stack

I chose a multi-language approach to balance productivity, safety, and performance:

Python for the core framework (easy prototyping and high-level logic).
Rust for the consensus module (memory safety and speed for critical parts like BFT).
Go for the high-performance engine (excellent concurrency for P2P networking and worker pools).

Some standout technical choices:

Security basics: Ed25519 signatures and AES-256-GCM encryption.
Consensus mechanisms: Supports PoA (Proof of Authority), PoF (Proof of Flow), and BFT.
Integration: gRPC for APIs, making it easy to connect with existing systems.
Data handling: Apache Arrow for columnar storage in blocks and zero-copy transfers. Especially cool is using PyArrow for efficient data exchange between Rust consensus and Python core – this reduces FFI overhead significantly and keeps things fast.

The project is split into three repos for modularity:

Main repo: https://github.com/VanDung-dev/HieraChain
Consensus module: https://github.com/VanDung-dev/HieraChain-Consensus
Engine: https://github.com/VanDung-dev/HieraChain-Engine

It's dual-licensed under Apache-2.0/MIT, with internal tests and some benchmarks.

Challenges and What I've Learned

Building this alone as a student has been tough:

Integrating Rust and Python via PyO3 and PyArrow took a lot of trial and error.
Designing a custom consensus while keeping it modular.
Balancing features without over-engineering.

But it's taught me a ton about distributed systems, cryptography, and polyglot programming. Right now, it's still in active development.

Current Status and Call for Feedback

This is far from a polished product – it's a learning project, and there are surely bugs, performance issues, or better design choices I'm missing because I've been working solo.

I'd love your feedback! If you're into Rust, Go, Python, or enterprise blockchain: