Learning Bitcoin from the Command-Line

NOTE: This is a draft in progress, so that I can get some feedback from early reviewers. It is not yet ready for use.

Copyright

Unless otherwise noted, the contents of this repository areCopyright ©2017 by Christopher Allen <ChristopherA@LifeWithAlacrity.com> and are licensed CC-BY.

Introduction

The best way to learn to learn deeply about bitcoin is to avoid GUIs (even bitcoin-qt), and instead learn it from the command line.

Requirements

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

Files

PART ONE: PREPARING FOR BITCOIN

• 1.0: Introducing Bitcoin
• 2.0: Setting Up a Bitcoin-Core VPS
  • 2.1: Setting Up a Bitcoin-Core VPS by Hand
  • 2.2: Setting Up a Bitcoin-Core VPS with StackScript.md
    • Linode_Bitcoin-Core_VPS_Setup.stackscript

PART TWO: BITCOIN-CLI

• 3.0: Understanding Your Bitcoin Setup
  • 3.1: Verifying Your Bitcoin Setup
  • 3.2: Knowing Your Bitcoin Setup
  • 3.3: Setting Up Your Wallet
    • Interlude: Using Command-Line Variables
  • 3.4: Receiving a Transaction
• 4.0: Creating Basic Bitcoin Transactions
  • 4.1: Sending Coins the Easy Way
  • 4.2: Creating a Raw Transaction
    • Interlude: Using JQ
  • 4.3: Creating a Raw Transaction with Named Arguments
  • 4.4: Sending Coins with Raw Transactions
  • 4.5: Sending Coins with Automated Raw Transactions
• 5.0: Controlling Bitcoin Transactions
  • 5.1 Watching for Stuck Transactions
  • 5.2: Resending a Transaction with RBF
  • 5.3: Funding a Transaction with CPFP
• 6.0: Expanding Bitcoin Transactions
  • 6.1: Sending a Transaction with a Multsig
  • 6.2: Spending a Transaction with a Multsig
  • 6.3: Sending a Transaction with a Locktime
  • 6.4: Sending a Transaction with Data

PART THREE: BITCOIN SCRIPTING

• 7.0: Introducing Bitcoin Scripting — Needs Edit
  • 7.1: Understanding the Foundation of Transactions — In Process
  • 7.2: Scripting a Pay to Public Key Hash — Pending
  • 7.3: Testing a Bitcoin Script — Pending
  • 7.4: Executing a Script — Pending

Planned Future Work

• 8.0: Reviewing Multisigs with Scripts
  • 8.1: Scripting with a Multisig
  • 8.2: Scripting with a Multisig Script
  • 8.3: Creating Multisig Scripts
• 9.0: Empowering Timelocks with Scripts
  • 9.1: Understanding Timelock Options
  • 9.2: Using CLTV in Scripts
  • 9.3: Using CSV in Scripts
• 10.0: Creating Original Bitcoin Scripts
  • 10.X: Scripting a Pay to Script Hash
  • 10.X: Scripting Conditionals
• 11.0: Writing Bitcoin RPC
  • 11.1: Accessing RPC with Curl
  • 11.2: Accessing RPC with C
  • 11.3: Watching Bitcoin Addresses in C

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This is probably all a future section on Elements.

• 11.0: Introducing SegWit

  • 11.X Scripting a Pay to Witness

• X.0: Introducing Elements

• X.0: Individual Elements

• Appendix: Compiling Bitcoin