Running a Node

This section teaches you how to run a Moca Chain Node.

⚠️ This section may change without prior notice

Critical information in this section may be subject to change given we are currently in testnet.

🔒 Repo not publicly available

Please reach out to us if you would like to run this code.

📢 Mainnet Target Launch: 2025 Q4

Node Information

Minimum System Requirements

Component	Requirement
OS	Desktop or laptop running recent versions of Mac OS X or Linux
Storage	1 TB free disk space, minimum read/write speed of 100 MB/s
CPU	4 cores
Memory (RAM)	12 GB
Network	Broadband connection, upload/download at least 1 MB/s

Recommended System Requirements

Component	Recommended Specification
Processor (CPU)	16-core CPU
Memory (RAM)	64 GB
Storage	3 TB SSD
Network	Stable high-speed internet, minimum 5 MB/s

Setting Up a New Node

⚠️ Links may not work as it is linked to private repos and may need adjustments.

Prerequisites

• Git
• Go 1.21+ and jq (native run)
• macOS or Linux

1. Clone the Repo

Clone the repository can navigate the the base:

git clone git@github.com:MocaFoundation/moca.git

# checkout stable version a382e3c 
git checkout tags/v12.0.0-alpha.1

2. Build the binaries

# Build mocad
make build

# <optionally> Add mocad to local bin
cp ./build/mocad /usr/local/bin

# Verify
mocad --help

3. Initialize Node#

This will initialize your local moca node home directory ~/.mocad containing chain data configuration.

mocad init mynode --chain-id moca_222888-1 --default-denom amoca

4. Pull Live genesis file

Fetch the current testnet genesis file.

RPC=https://testnet-lcd.mocachain.org
curl -s "$RPC/genesis" | jq -r '.result.genesis' > ~/.mocad/config/genesis.json

5. Add peers

Copy the testnet RPCs peers:

PEERS=$(curl -s "$RPC/net_info" | jq -r '.result.peers[] | select(.node_info.id and .remote_ip) | "\(.node_info.id)@\(.remote_ip):26656"' | paste -sd, -)

# Update config with peers
[ -n "$PEERS" ] && \
  sed -i '' 's/seeds = ".*"/seeds = ""/' ~/.mocad/config/config.toml && \
  sed -i '' "s/persistent_peers = \".*\"/persistent_peers = \"$PEERS\"/" ~/.mocad/config/config.toml && \
  sed -i '' 's/addr_book_strict = true/addr_book_strict = false/' ~/.mocad/config/config.toml

Alternatively you can provide your own list of peers.

6. (Optional) Fast sync state

State sync quickly bootstraps your node by trusting a recent block header (light client verification) and downloading a snapshot of the application state at that height, instead of replaying all historical blocks.

# Get current height
HEIGHT=$(($(curl -s "$RPC/block" | jq -r '.result.block.header.height') - 1000))
HASH=$(curl -s "$RPC/block?height=$HEIGHT" | jq -r '.result.block_id.hash')

# Set trusted height and hash to sync from in your node configuration files
sed -i '' 's/^enable *= *.*/enable = true/' ~/.mocad/config/config.toml
sed -i '' "s|^rpc_servers *= *.*|rpc_servers = \"$RPC,$RPC\"|" ~/.mocad/config/config.toml
sed -i '' "s/^trust_height *= *.*/trust_height = $HEIGHT/" ~/.mocad/config/config.toml
sed -i '' "s/^trust_hash *= *.*/trust_hash = \"$HASH\"/" ~/.mocad/config/config.toml
sed -i '' 's/^trust_period *= *.*/trust_period = "168h0m0s"/' ~/.mocad/config/config.toml

7. Run the node

mocad start --chain-id=moca_222888-1

The node will take some time to full sync up to the current chain height.

Verify Syncing

You can verify if state sync is done by curl localhost:26657/status several times and see whether latest_block_height is increasing in response.

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:26657/status | jq -r ".result.sync_info.latest_block_height"
# Expect block height greater than 0