2.7 KiB
Introduction to Programming Bitcoin Core & Lightning
The ways that we make payments for goods and services has been changing dramatically over the last several decades. Where once all transactions were conducted through cash or checks, now various electronic payment methods are the norm. However, most of these electronic payments still occur through centralized systems, where credit card companies, banks, or even internet-based financial institutions like Paypal keep long, individually correlated lists of transactions and have the power to censor transactions that they don't like.
These centralization risks were some of the prime catalysts behind the creation of cryptocurrencies, the first and most successful of which is Bitcoin. Bitcoin offers pseudonymity, it makes it difficult to correlate transactions, and it makes censorship by individual entities all but impossible. These advantages have made it one of the quickest growing currencies in the world. That growth in turn has made Bitcoin into a going concern among entrepreneurs and developers, eager to create new services for the Bitcoin community.
If you're one of those entrepreneurs or developers, then this book is for you, because it's all about learning to program Bitcoin. It's an introductory book, which explains all the nuances and features of Bitcoin as it goes. It also takes a very specific tack, by offering lessons in how to work directly with Bitcoin Core and with the c-lightning server.
Why not use some of the more fully featured libraries found in various programming languages? Why not create your own from scratch? It's because working with cryptocurrency is dangerous. There are no safety nets. If you accidentally overpay your fees or lose a signing key or create an invalid transaction or make any number of potential mistakes, then your cryptocurrency will been gone forever. Much of that responsibility will, of course, lie with you as a cryptocurrency programmer, but it can be minimized by working with the most robust, secure, and safe cryptocurrency interfaces around, the ones created by the cryptocurrency programming teams themselves: bitcoind and lightningd.
Much of this book thus discusses how to script Bitcoin (and Lightning) directly from the command line. Some later chapters deals with more sophisticated programming languages, but again they continue to interact directly with the bitcoind and lightningd daemons by using RPC or by interacting with the files they create. This allows you to stand on the shoulders of giants and use their trusted technology to learn how to create your own trusted systems.
What's Next?
Learn the basics of Bitcoin in Chapter One: Introducing Bitcoin.