TECHNICAL DESIGN · NOT DEPLOYED
The Novara chain blueprint
A conservative proposal based on established Hyperledger Besu tooling. These are design decisions to validate in a real network, not claims of a running chain.
NOVA.
Native gas and transfer asset at the genesis layer of an independent EVM chain. Not an ERC-20 token, not issued, and not available for purchase.
Consensus
Besu QBFT
Proposed permissioned validator set
Decimals
18
Proposed EVM convention
Chain ID
Unassigned
Must check registry / collisions
RPC
Not live
No endpoint to connect to
REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE
From signature to finality
Wallet & application
EIP-1193 wallet provider signs locally; app requests eth_chainId, eth_getBalance, eth_sendTransaction and eth_getTransactionReceipt.
RPC & explorer
Dedicated HTTPS JSON-RPC gateway, rate limits, chain-ID checks and independently indexed explorer. Neither endpoint exists yet.
Execution nodes
Besu EVM full nodes validate state transitions, signatures, sender nonce, available balance and gas before accepting transactions.
QBFT validators
Four separately operated validators proposed for a fault-tolerant pilot. At least a two-thirds supermajority signs each block.
Validation & replay protection
EVM transaction signature and chain ID identify the sender and domain. A per-account nonce orders transactions; insufficient balance, invalid nonce, invalid signature, or insufficient gas rejects a transaction. A finalized block cannot include two spends of the same nonce in the canonical state.
Fees & receipts
Native NOVA would pay network gas per the chosen genesis fee policy. A signed transfer returns a hash, not proof of success. Track receipt status, block height, and confirmations via RPC; disclose finality and reorg assumptions in the client.
Operations & recovery
Separate validator keys and RPC nodes; private key custody with offline backups. Monitor peer count, block lag, validator participation, disk, RPC errors, and certificate expiry. Test snapshot restore and incident runbooks before opening access.
Wallet network addition
After deployment: publish unique hex chain ID, HTTPS RPC URL, name, NOVA symbol, 18 decimals, and verified explorer URL. A compatible wallet may support wallet_addEthereumChain; it must verify RPC chain ID. No one-click add is offered until those values are real.
MILESTONES
What must become real
Real Ethereum testnet experience
Sepolia provider reads and wallet-signed transactions implemented in this app.
Local QBFT pilot
Run four Besu validators on a developer machine using the official quickstart.
Independent public testnet
Publish genesis, persistent validators, public TLS RPC, explorer, and monitoring.
Security-reviewed launch
External infrastructure and protocol review, fault drills, legal checks, and wallet testing.