Parallax Client

Open source

The reference node for Parallax

Run parallaxd and check every block against Parallax's rules yourself. Its peer-to-peer layer is modelled on Bitcoin Core's, Tor is built in, and it serves JSON-RPC and metrics to everything you build on it.

Linux, macOS, Windows and Docker

parallax-cli info
{
  "blocks": 60399,
  "chainid": 2110,
  "connections": 8,
  "gasprice": "1000000000",
  "id": "60f601255cc6d344f513f7ee3093cb69f42044d7b4d58a060c2f1651352ab760",
  "listenaddr": "[::]:32110",
  "mempool": {
    "pending": 3,
    "queued": 0
  },
  "mining": false,
  "networkid": "2110",
  "protocolversion": 66,
  "syncing": false,
  "version": "Parallax/v2.1.5-stable-e7d55074/linux-amd64/go1.27.2-X:nodwarf5"
}

01Full node

What a full node does

A full node downloads every block and checks every transaction against the rules itself. It trusts no one, miners included.

Decentralized

Node operators keep Parallax decentralized. They individually run their own Parallax full nodes, and each of those full nodes separately follows the exact same rules to decide which block chain is valid.

No voting

There's no voting or other corruptible process involved: there's just individual software following identical rules—"math"—to evaluate identical blocks and coming to identical conclusions about which block chain is valid.

Why run your own node

Verify, don't trust

Your node checks every block, signature and proof of work against the rules, the 21,000,000 LAX cap among them. A wallet pointed at it sees the chain as it is, not as a server reports it.

Keep your lookups private

A public RPC sees which addresses you ask about. Point your wallet at your own node and those questions never leave your computer.

Strengthen the network

Every independent node is one more copy of the rules that a bad block has to get past. Open port 32110 (TCP and UDP) and your node also serves the chain to new peers.

Build on it

parallaxd serves JSON-RPC over HTTP, WebSocket and IPC for your own apps and scripts. Keep it on your machine or network; never expose an unauthenticated RPC port to the internet.

02Peer-to-peer

Networking modelled on Bitcoin Core's

A node is only as honest as the peers it hears from. The client picks, keeps and drops its peers the way Bitcoin Core does, so one operator can't easily surround it.

A stochastic address manager

Peer addresses live in new and tried tables, bucketed with a secret key only your node knows, so an attacker can't predict which addresses it keeps or crowd out the rest.

Anchors across restarts

Two block-relay peers are saved on shutdown and dialled first on the next start, so a restart doesn't hand every connection to whoever answers first.

Feeler connections

Short test connections check that stored addresses still answer, without taking up one of the node's outbound slots.

Eviction that protects good peers

When inbound slots are full, the peers with the lowest ping, the most recent blocks and transactions, the longest uptime and the most varied networks are kept.

Diversity by network group

Outbound peers are spread across distinct network ranges, with Tor addresses in groups of their own, so no single range holds more than its share.

Bans and DNS seeds

Misbehaving peers are banned, and bans are listed and lifted from parallax-cli. DNS seeds are asked for fresh peers once a day, as in Bitcoin Core.

03Tor

Tor, built in

The client's Tor support follows Bitcoin Core's: reach peers through Tor, accept them on an onion address, or run with no clearnet connections at all.

  • An onion service on its own

    With Tor running, the node creates a Tor v3 onion service for its P2P port through the control port. Peers can reach it with no port forwarding.

  • Outbound through Tor

    Route connections through a SOCKS5 proxy, or only the ones to .onion peers. Each connection gets its own Tor circuit by default.

  • Onion peers like any other

    Onion addresses are shared and stored next to IPv4 and IPv6 ones, so the Tor side of the network finds itself.

  • Fully dark

    --onlynet=onion keeps every outbound connection inside Tor.

Run a dark node

parallaxd --onlynet=onion

04Operate

Built to be run for years

Short commands, a daemon mode, config files, and a fee estimator worth trusting.

parallax-cli

info, tip, peers, mempool, setban, addnode and more. It finds the node's socket by itself and prints bare values for scripts.

Daemon mode

parallax-cli start runs the node in the background with its logs in the data directory, and parallax-cli stop shuts it down cleanly.

Config files

dumpconfig writes your flags to a TOML file, and --config loads it back on the next start.

A smart fee estimator

On by default and modelled on Bitcoin Core's: it learns how fast transactions confirm at each fee and answers eth_estimateSmartFee for a target number of blocks.

Full or archive

Snap sync from a recent block or sync in full from genesis, keep every historical state as an archive node, and choose how many blocks the transaction index covers.

Pruning

parallaxd snapshot prune-state reclaims disk space on a full node offline, with no resync.

Shell completion

bash and zsh completion for every program, generated from the flags themselves.

Hardware wallets

Ledger and Trezor accounts through USB, or clef as an external signer with its own rules.

Everyday commands

parallax-cli startparallax-cli tipparallax-cli peersparallax-cli mempoolparallax-cli listbannedparallax-cli stop

05Serve

A node for everything you build

Exchanges, pools, explorers and apps run on the same parallaxd. It speaks Ethereum's JSON-RPC, so the tools you already use work unchanged.

  • JSON-RPC everywhere

    HTTP, WebSocket and IPC, with batch requests and subscriptions to new blocks, logs and pending transactions.

  • GraphQL

    Query blocks, transactions and logs in one request with the built-in GraphQL server.

  • Authenticated endpoints

    A JWT-protected endpoint for services that need one. Keep the rest on localhost: never expose an unauthenticated RPC port to the internet.

  • Metrics

    Prometheus and InfluxDB metrics for the chain, the peers and the database, with guides for building Grafana dashboards.

Put your node on the status page. Start it with --prlstats and it reports its name, client version and OS, the blocks it sees, its peers, latency and uptime to status.parallaxprotocol.org. Off unless you turn it on; give it a name with --prlstats [email protected], or point it at your own prlstats server.

Network status

06In the download

Four programs in every archive

Every release archive holds the same command-line tools. Each does one job.

parallaxd

The full-node daemon. Runs a full or archive node and serves JSON-RPC over HTTP, WebSocket and IPC.

parallaxd

parallax-cli

The command-line RPC client, with short commands like info, peers, balance and sendraw. It finds your node's IPC socket on its own.

parallax-cli info

parallax-wallet

An offline wallet tool: create, list and import accounts, and sign messages and transactions. It never talks to a running node.

parallax-wallet signmessage

parallax

A multi-call wrapper: parallax node, parallax rpc and parallax wallet run the three above.

parallax rpc info

Hardware

CPU

2+ cores

Recommended

1 core · Minimum

Memory

4+ GB

Recommended

2 GB · Minimum

Storage

100 GB SSD

Recommended

50 GB SSD · Minimum

Network

10+ Mbps

Recommended

1 Mbps · Minimum

Releases change the software, never the rules

Version numbers describe the client, not consensus. There is no scheduled fork, and a new release is never an occasion to change what a valid block is.

07Download

Download the Parallax Client

Prebuilt archives from the open-source repository, published with SHA-256 checksums.

Linux

x86_64, ARM64, ARMv7, x86

macOS

Apple silicon, Intel

Windows

x64, x86

Three steps from download to a syncing node. No configuration required.

01 / EXTRACT

Unpack the archive

From a terminal in your downloads folder:

tar -xzf parallax-linux-*.tar.gz

02 / RUN

Start parallaxd

From the extracted folder, make sure the binary is executable and run it:

chmod +x parallaxd && ./parallaxd

03 / SYNC

Wait for the chain

Your node downloads and verifies the blockchain automatically. Data is stored at:

~/.parallax

Initial sync can take a while depending on your connection.

Want to help strengthen the network? Open ports 32110 TCP & UDP on your router.

Full setup guide

Or run it in Docker

Multi-arch images (amd64 and arm64) are published to Docker Hub with every release. The image runs as an unprivileged user and keeps its state in the volume you mount.

parallaxprotocol/parallax
Docker
docker run -d --name parallax \
  -v parallax-data:/home/parallax/.parallax \
  -p 32110:32110 -p 32110:32110/udp \
  parallaxprotocol/parallax node

docker stop -t 60 parallax

Stop it with a 60-second timeout so the database shuts down cleanly.