btcnet

Package btcnet defines the network parameters for the three standard Bitcoin networks and provides the ability for callers to define their own custom Bitcoin networks.

This package is one of the core packages from btcd, an alternative full-node implementation of Bitcoin which is under active development by Conformal. Although it was primarily written for btcd, this package has intentionally been designed so it can be used as a standalone package for any projects needing to use parameters for the standard Bitcoin networks or for projects needing to define their own network.

Sample Use

package main

import (
	"flag"
	"fmt"
	"log"

	"github.com/conformal/btcnet"
	"github.com/conformal/btcutil"
)

var testnet = flag.Bool("testnet", false, "operate on the testnet Bitcoin network")

// By default (without -testnet), use mainnet.
var netParams = &btcnet.MainNetParams

func main() {
	flag.Parse()

	// Modify active network parameters if operating on testnet.
	if *testnet {
		netParams = &btcnet.TestNet3Params
	}

	// later...

	// Create and print new payment address, specific to the active network.
	pubKeyHash := make([]byte, 20)
	addr, err := btcutil.NewAddressPubKeyHash(pubKeyHash, netParams)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	fmt.Println(addr)
}

Documentation

Full go doc style documentation for the project can be viewed online without installing this package by using the GoDoc site here.

You can also view the documentation locally once the package is installed with the godoc tool by running godoc -http=":6060" and pointing your browser to http://localhost:6060/pkg/github.com/conformal/btcnet

Installation

$ go get github.com/conformal/btcnet

GPG Verification Key

All official release tags are signed by Conformal so users can ensure the code has not been tampered with and is coming from Conformal. To verify the signature perform the following:

• Download the public key from the Conformal website at https://opensource.conformal.com/GIT-GPG-KEY-conformal.txt

• Import the public key into your GPG keyring:

  gpg --import GIT-GPG-KEY-conformal.txt
  

• Verify the release tag with the following command where TAG_NAME is a placeholder for the specific tag:

  git tag -v TAG_NAME
  

License

Package btcnet is licensed under the liberal ISC License.