Building a Private Ethereum Blockchain in a Box - Master's Thesis

Sep 12, 2026

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This thesis presents a complete, practical workflow for building a private Ethereum blockchain packaged for easy use. It covers implementing core components such as a faucet smart contract, a token factory, a block explorer and a decentralized exchange, supported by a web interface for interaction. The work also explains the theoretical foundations behind the Clique proof-of-authority consensus, ERC20 tokens and the Uniswap decentralized exchange. A working prototype is built with three Raspberry Pi computers connected through a local network.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages48

Reading Time17 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Motivation and scope

Ethereum

Private blockchain concept

Consensus protocol

ERC20 tokens

Uniswap

Components of the Briefcase

Hardware

Software

Installation Guide

Set up Raspberry Pi

RTC module

Initialize Geth

Network

Startup scripts

Uniswap

Website

Conclusion

References

Appendix A User Manual

Appendix B Faucet Webpage

University of Basel Faculty of Business and Economics Master's Thesis: Building a Private Ethereum Blockchain in a Box Submission Date: January 6th , 2020 Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Fabian Schär Florian Bitterli 2015-057-037 ﬂ[orian.bitterli@unibas.ch](orian.bitterli@unibas.ch) Major: Monetary Economics and Financial Markets Abstract In this paper, we describe the process of building a private Ethereum blockchain including applications such as a faucet smart contract, a token factory, a blockexplorer and a decentralized exchange, including a web interface to interact with them. It furthermore provides theoretical background regarding the implemented proof of authority consensus protocol, ERC20 tokens and the decentralized exchange Uniswap. An actual prototype was created and it includes three Raspberry Pi computers that are connected by a local network and run a private Ethereum blockchain with the Clique proof of authority consensus protocol. Contents 1 Introduction 2 2 Ethereum 3 2.1 Private Blockchain ........................... 4 2.2 Consensus Protocol ........................... 5 2.3 ERC20 Tokens ............................. 7 2.4 Uniswap ................................. 8 3 Components of the Briefcase 11 3.1 Hardware ................................ 11 3.2 Software ................................. 13 4 Installation Guide 14 4.1 Set Up Raspberry Pi .......................... 15 4.2 RTC Module .............................. 16 4.3 Initialize Geth .............................. 18 4.4 Network ................................. 20 4.5 Startup Scripts ............................. 21 4.6 Uniswap ................................. 25 4.7 Website ................................. 27 5 Conclusion 35 References i Appendix A User Manual v Appendix B Faucet Webpage vii Basel, January 6, 2020 Ich bezeuge hiermit, dass meine Angaben über die bei der Abfassung meiner Arbeit benutzten Hilfsmittel sowie über die mir zuteil gewordene Hilfe in jeder Hinsicht der Wahrheit entsprechen und vollständig sind. Ich habe das Merkblatt zu Plagiat und Betrug vom 22 . Februar 2011 gelesen und bin mir der Konsequenzen eines solchen Handelns bewusst. Florian Bitterli For any questions or comments on this paper, please contact:ﬂ[orian.bitterli@unibas.ch](orian.bitterli@unibas.ch) I would like to thank the following people for their valuable inputs and feedback: Fabian Schär, Tobias Bitterli, Jan Dietrich, Patrice Bitterli and Célia Racine. 1 Introduction Since the proposition of Bitcoin (Nakamoto, 2008), blockchain has been an increasingly present topic and a vast amount of diﬀerent cryptocurrencies emerged. The Ethereum platform is of signiﬁcant importance, because of its Turing complete programming language that led to its widely adopted smart contract possibilities. In addition to the main Ethereum network, there exist various testing networks which are used to develop and test new smart contracts and decentralized applications. For some use cases, there may be reasons not to use a public testing network and instead creating an own private network. For example, this may be because of privacy concerns. While there exists software to quickly create a local development blockchain, these solutions usually run locally on a single computer and the idea of a decentralized network, working together to ﬁnd consensus, may not be directly apparent. However, such a tangible private blockchain can be very useful for some applications, especially if it involves educational purposes. For example, it provides a great foundation for showcasing the technology to someone, who not yet acquainted with blockchain technology or its smart contract possibilities. This is what we address with this paper, by providing comprehensive instructions on how to set up a private Ethereum blockchain using Linux based minicomputers. Additionally, as a part of the project, such a private Ethereum blockchain was

FAQs

What components are implemented in the private Ethereum blockchain setup?

The thesis implements a faucet smart contract, a token factory, a block explorer and a decentralized exchange, together with a web interface for interaction.

Which consensus mechanism is used in the prototype?

The prototype runs a private Ethereum blockchain using the Clique proof-of-authority consensus protocol.

How is the prototype deployed and connected?

It uses three Raspberry Pi computers connected by a local network, where each device runs the private Ethereum blockchain and supports plug-and-play startup via startup scripts.

Sep 12, 2026

Upload by Jacob