Bitcore

Infrastructure to build Bitcoin and blockchain-based applications for the next generation of financial technology.

Getting Started

Install with Node.js

npm install -g bitcore

Install for web browsers:

bower install bitcore

Spin up a full node and join the network:

npm install -g bitcore
bitcore init mynode
cd mynode
bitcore start

Create a transaction:

var bitcore = require('bitcore');
var transaction = new bitcore.Transaction();
var transaction.from(unspent).to(address, amount);
transaction.sign(privateKey);

Applications

• Node - A full node with extended capabilities using Bitcoin Core
• Insight API - A blockchain explorer HTTP API
• Insight UI - A blockchain explorer web user interface
• Wallet Service - A multisig HD service for wallets
• Wallet Client - A client for the wallet service
• CLI Wallet - A command-line based wallet client
• Angular Wallet Client - An Angular based wallet client
• Copay - An easy-to-use, multiplatform, multisignature, secure bitcoin wallet.

Extended Features

• Payment Protocol - A protocol for merchant's and customer's wallet
• P2P - Peer-to-Peer networking
• Mnemonic - Implements Mnemonic code for generating deterministic keys.
• Channel - Micro-payment channels
• Message - Bitcoin message verification and signing
• ECIES - Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES)

Documentation

The complete docs are hosted here: bitcore documentation. There's also a bitcore API reference available generated from the JSDocs of the project, where you'll find low-level details on each bitcore utility.

• Read the Developer Guide
• Read the API Reference

To get community assistance and ask for help with implementation questions, please use our community forums.

Examples

• Generate a random address
• Generate a address from a SHA256 hash
• Import an address via WIF
• Create a Transaction
• Sign a Bitcoin message
• Verify a Bitcoin message
• Create an OP RETURN transaction
• Create a 2-of-3 multisig P2SH address
• Spend from a 2-of-2 multisig P2SH address

Security

We're using Bitcore in production, as are many others, but please use common sense when doing anything related to finances! We take no responsibility for your implementation decisions.

If you find a security issue, please email security@bitpay.com.

Contributing

Please send pull requests for bug fixes, code optimization, and ideas for improvement. For more information on how to contribute, please refer to our CONTRIBUTING file.

Building the Browser Bundle

To build bitcore full bundle for the browser:

gulp browser

This will generate files named bitcore.js and bitcore.min.js.

You can also use our pre-generated files, provided for each release along with a PGP signature by one of the project's maintainers. To get them, checkout a release commit (for example, e33b6e3ba6 for v0.12.6).

To verify signatures, use the following PGP keys:

• @braydonf: https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x9BBF07CAC07A276D
• @pnagurny: https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x0909B33F0AA53013

Development & Tests

git clone https://github.com/bitpay/bitcore
cd bitcore
npm install

Run all the tests:

gulp test

You can also run just the Node.js tests with gulp test:node, just the browser tests with gulp test:browser or create a test coverage report (you can open coverage/lcov-report/index.html to visualize it) with gulp coverage.

License

Code released under the MIT license.

Copyright 2013-2015 BitPay, Inc. Bitcore is a trademark maintained by BitPay, Inc.