Welcome to Bitcoinlib’s documentation!

The Python BitcoinLib is a library that provides developers with a wide range of tools to work with Bitcoin.

This library is flexible and modular: you can use specific modules without loading the entire library.

Below you can find some basic examples, link to some manuals and an overview of modules and classes.

For questions, issues, ideas please check Github Discussions or the Github issues page.

Wallet

This Bitcoin Library contains a wallet implementation using SQLAlchemy and SQLite3, MySQL or PostgreSQL to import, create and manage keys in a Hierarchical Deterministic way.

Example: Create wallet and generate new address (key) to receive bitcoins

>>> from bitcoinlib.wallets import Wallet >>> w = Wallet.create('Wallet1') >>> key1 = w.get_key() >>> key1.address '1Fo7STj6LdRhUuD1AiEsHpH65pXzraGJ9j' 

Now send a small transaction to your wallet and use the scan() method to update transactions and UTXO’s

>>> w.scan() >>> w.info() # Shows wallet information, keys, transactions and UTXO's 

When your wallet received a payment and has unspent transaction outputs, you can send bitcoins easily. If successful a transaction ID is returned

>>> t = w.send_to('1PWXhWvUH3bcDWn6Fdq3xhMRPfxRXTjAi1', '0.001 BTC') 'b7feea5e7c79d4f6f343b5ca28fa2a1fcacfe9a2b7f44f3d2fd8d6c2d82c4078' >>> t.info() # Shows transaction information and send results 

Segregated Witness Wallet

Easily create and manage Segwit wallets. Both native Segwit with base32/bech32 addresses and P2SH nested Segwit wallets with traditional addresses are available.

Create a native single key P2WPKH wallet:

>>> from bitcoinlib.wallets import Wallet >>> w = Wallet.create('segwit_p2wpkh', witness_type='segwit') >>> w.get_key().address bc1q84y2quplejutvu0h4gw9hy59fppu3thg0u2xz3 

Or create a P2SH nested single key P2SH_P2WPKH wallet:

>>> from bitcoinlib.wallets import Wallet >>> w = Wallet.create('segwit_p2sh_p2wpkh', witness_type='p2sh-segwit') >>> w.get_key().address 36ESSWgR4WxXJSc4ysDSJvecyY6FJkhUbp 

Wallet from passphrase with accounts and multiple currencies

The following code creates a wallet with two bitcoin and one litecoin account from a Mnemonic passphrase. The complete wallet can be recovered from the passphrase which is the masterkey.

from bitcoinlib.wallets import Wallet, wallet_delete from bitcoinlib.mnemonic import Mnemonic passphrase = Mnemonic().generate() print(passphrase) w = Wallet.create("Wallet2", keys=passphrase, network='bitcoin') account_btc2 = w.new_account('Account BTC 2') account_ltc1 = w.new_account('Account LTC', network='litecoin') w.get_key() w.get_key(account_btc2.account_id) w.get_key(account_ltc1.account_id) w.info() 

Multi Signature Wallets

Create a Multisig wallet with 2 cosigners which both need to sign a transaction.

from bitcoinlib.wallets import Wallet from bitcoinlib.keys import HDKey NETWORK = 'testnet' k1 = HDKey('tprv8ZgxMBicQKsPd1Q44tfDiZC98iYouKRC2CzjT3HGt1yYw2zuX2awTotzGAZQEAU9bi2M5MCj8iedP9MREPjUgpDEBwBgGi2C8eK' '5zNYeiX8', network=NETWORK) k2 = HDKey('tprv8ZgxMBicQKsPeUbMS6kswJc11zgVEXUnUZuGo3bF6bBrAg1ieFfUdPc9UHqbD5HcXizThrcKike1c4z6xHrz6MWGwy8L6YKVbgJ' 'MeQHdWDp', network=NETWORK) w1 = Wallet.create('multisig_2of2_cosigner1', sigs_required=2, keys=[k1, k2.public_master(multisig=True)], network=NETWORK) w2 = Wallet.create('multisig_2of2_cosigner2', sigs_required=2, keys=[k1.public_master(multisig=True), k2], network=NETWORK) print("Deposit testnet bitcoin to this address to create transaction: ", w1.get_key().address) 

Create a transaction in the first wallet

w1.utxos_update() t = w1.sweep('mwCwTceJvYV27KXBc3NJZys6CjsgsoeHmf', min_confirms=0) t.info() 

And then import the transaction in the second wallet, sign it and push it to the network

w2.get_key() t2 = w2.transaction_import(t) t2.sign() t2.send() t2.info() 

Sign a message with a Bitcoin wallet

Create a signed message with a Bitcoinlib wallet. After signing you can verify it with another wallet or an online service, to prove you are the owner of the private key

>>> message = "This is a signed message as proof I own this wallet and private key. Alice" >>> w = wallet_create_or_open('message-signing-wallet') >>> sig = w.sign_message(message) >>> sig.as_signed_message(message) -----BEGIN BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE----- This is a example of a signed message by a Bitcoinlib wallet -----BEGIN SIGNATURE----- bc1q065ed8cnxf9rr2v0qhatr2guruulr0jpgjycfu J4YKfaKqHDJCidfWXYTRC191QYZ3slu8VzgFyUb6m7QJn7Yn2sif7Od1slvnhBV6pLqj2cnISyahVCIrrHQNe0I= -----END BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE----- 

Command Line Tool

With the command line tool you can create and manage wallet without any Python programming.

To create a new Bitcoin wallet

$ python bitcoinlib/tools/clw.py new -w newwallet Command Line Wallet - BitcoinLib 0.6.14 CREATE wallet 'newwallet' (bitcoin network) Passphrase: sibling undo gift cat garage survey taxi index admit odor surface waste Please write down on paper and backup. With this key you can restore your wallet and all keys Type 'yes' if you understood and wrote down your key: yes Wallet info for newwallet === WALLET ===  ID 21  Name newwallet  Owner  Scheme bip32  Multisig False  Witness type segwit  Main network bitcoin  Latest update None = Wallet Master Key =  ID 177  Private True  Depth 0 - NETWORK: bitcoin - - - Keys  182 m/84`/0`/0`/0/0 bc1qza24j7snqlmx7603z8qplm4rzfkr0p0mneraqv address index 0 0.00000000 ₿ - - Transactions Account 0 (0) = Balance Totals (includes unconfirmed) = 

You can use the command line wallet ‘clw’ to create simple or multisig wallets for various networks, manage public and private keys and managing transactions.

For the full command line wallet documentation please read

http://bitcoinlib.readthedocs.io/en/latest/_static/manuals.command-line-wallet.html

Service providers

Communicates with pools of bitcoin service providers to retrieve transaction, address, blockchain information. To push a transaction to the network. To determine optimal service fee for a transaction. Or to update your wallet’s balance.

Example: Get estimated transactionfee in Sathosis per Kb for confirmation within 5 blocks

>>> from bitcoinlib.services.services import Service >>> Service().estimatefee(5) 138964 

Other Databases

Bitcoinlib uses the SQLite database by default but other databases are supported as well. See http://bitcoinlib.readthedocs.io/en/latest/_static/manuals.databases.html for instructions on how to use MySQL or PostgreSQL.

More examples

For more examples see https://github.com/1200wd/bitcoinlib/tree/master/examples

Manuals

Classes

Reference

Disclaimer

This library is still in development, please use at your own risk and test sufficiently before using it in a production environment.