Learning Bitcoin from the Command Line is a tutorial for working with Bitcoin (and Lightning) that teaches direct interaction with the servers themselves, as the most robust and secure way to begin cryptocurrency work.
NOTE: This is a draft in progress, so that I can get some feedback from early reviewers. It is not yet ready for use.
This tutorial assumes that you have some minimal background of how to use the command line interface. If not, there are many tutorials available, and I have one for Mac users at https://github.com/ChristopherA/intro-mac-command-line.
Status: Finished. Updated for 0.20.
Status: Finished. Updated for 0.20.
- 3.0: Understanding Your Bitcoin Setup
- 4.0: Sending Bitcoin Transactions
- 5.0: Controlling Bitcoin Transactions
- 6.0: Expanding Bitcoin Transactions with Multisigs
- 7.0: Expanding Bitcoin Transactions with PSBTs
- 8.0: Expanding Bitcoin Transactions in Other Ways
Status: Finished. Updated for 0.20 and btcdeb.
- 9.0: Introducing Bitcoin Scripts
- 10.0: Embedding Bitcoin Scripts in P2SH Transactions
- 11.0: Empowering Timelock with Bitcoin Scripts
- 12.0: Expanding Bitcoin Scripts
- 13.0: Designing Real Bitcoin Scripts
Status: Finished.
Status: Finished.
- 15.0: Talking to Bitcoind with C
- 16.0: Programming Bitcoin with Libwally
- 17.0: Talking to Bitcoind with Other Languages
Status: Finished.
This is the end of the polished second-edition course as it currently stands. We are looking for reviews on chapters 0-17 above. Thank you for your help & support!
We want to expand ths course to also introduce programming with RPC and finally talk about Lightning. The material below is all in process. We'll move it "above the line" for review and learning when we finish it up.
Status: Unfinished. Requires renumbering [currently all listed as chapter 13], editing
(At this point, I'm assuming that Lightning will be integrated into Standup, at which point we just need to tech how to use it at a pretty basic level.)
- 18.0: Understanding Lightning
- 18.1: Verifying Your Lightning Setup
- 18.2: Knowing Your Lightning Setup
- 18.3: Setting up a Channel
- 19.0: Using Lightning
- 19.1: Generating a Payment Request
- 19.2: Paying an Invoice
- 19.3: Closing a Channel
Learning Bitcoin from the Command Line is currently under active development and its writing in progress. Current chapters are functional, but need to be updated to more modern versions of Bitcoin-Core. Additional chapters also need to be written to fill out our intended scope.
The empty chapters above show some of our current plans for future work. Other plans, mainly drawn from old issues, can be found in TODO.md
Obviously, this work in progress should not be used for production tasks until it is completed and has had further testing and auditing.
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| Name | Role | Github | GPG Fingerprint | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christopher Allen | Lead Author | @ChristopherA | <ChristopherA@LifeWithAlacrity.com> | FDFE 14A5 4ECB 30FC 5D22 74EF F8D3 6C91 3574 05ED |
| Shannon Appelcline | Lead Author | @shannona | <shannon.appelcline@gmail.com> | 7EC6 B928 606F 27AD |
Additional contributions are listed below:
| Role | Names |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | gg2001 (Go, Node.js sections), gorazdko (Rust section), Javier Vargas (C, Java, Lightning, Tor sections), jodobear (Appendix: Compiling Bitcoin, Python section) |
| Reviewers: | Glen Willem @gwillem |
| Sponsors: | Blockstream Corporation |
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