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In the previous post we went through transactions, their inputs and outputs and how the funds are locked. In this post we will go through different ways of creating a simple payment transaction from the command line and then programmatically. The tutorial assumes some understanding of the high-level Bitcoin concepts or at least having gone through the previous technical articles of this tutorial.
We can use sendtoaddress to send bitcoins to an address.
$ ./bitcoin-cli sendtoaddress mnB6gSoVfUAPu6MhKkAfgsjPfBWmEEmFr3 0.1
18f23a2c3bea97d30e0e09376222b6888943e7dc86df43ff5dfa1ff59c10d8ec
In this example we use the node to send 0.1 bitcoins to address mnB6gSoVfUAPu6MhKkAfgsjPfBWmEEmFr3. Notice that we do not specify any details on which UTXOs to spend from. The node wallet will decide which UTXOs it will spend and in which address the change (there is almost always change) will go; i.e. we do not have any control when sending funds this way.
Notice that the result is the transaction identifier (txid) of this transaction.
In this example we want to select the inputs explicitly. We need to know the txids and the output indexes (vout). As an example, we can get those with:
$ ./bitcoin-cli listunspent 0
[
{
"txid": "b3b7464d3472a9e83da4d5c179620b71724a62eac8bc14ac4543190227183940",
"vout": 0,
"address": "n1jnMQCyt9DHR3BYKzdbmXWM8M5UvH9nMW",
"account": "",
"scriptPubKey": "76a914ddcf9faf5625d6a96790710bbcef98af9a8719e388ac",
"amount": 1.30000000,
"confirmations": 0,
"spendable": true,
"solvable": true
}
...
]
The above command lists all UTXOs (even those with 0 confirmations; i.e. in the mempool). Now we can create a transaction specifying the UTXO that we want to spend.
$ ./bitcoin-cli createrawtransaction '''
> [
> {
> "txid": "b3b7464d3472a9e83da4d5c179620b71724a62eac8bc14ac4543190227183940",
> "vout": 0
> }
> ]
> ''' '''
> {
> "mqazutWCSnuYqEpLBznke2ooGimyCtwCh8": 0.2
> }'''
01000000014039182702194345ac14bcc8ea624a72710b6279c1d5a43de8a972344d46b7b30000000000ffffffff01002d3101000000001976a9146e751b60fcb566418c6b9f68bfa51438aefbe09488ac00000000
The result is the serialized raw transaction in hexadecimal. Note that this is not signed yet. To see the details of the raw transaction we can use:
$ ./bitcoin-cli decoderawtransaction 01000000014039182702194345ac14bcc8ea624a72710b6279c1d5a43de8a972344d46b7b30000000000ffffffff01002d3101000000001976a9146e751b60fcb566418c6b9f68bfa51438aefbe09488ac00000000
{
"txid": "a7b54334096108e8f69ecfa19263cfbf2f12210165ef5fc2e98ef8e4e466392e",
"hash": "a7b54334096108e8f69ecfa19263cfbf2f12210165ef5fc2e98ef8e4e466392e",
"size": 85,
"vsize": 85,
"version": 1,
"locktime": 0,
"vin": [
{
"txid": "b3b7464d3472a9e83da4d5c179620b71724a62eac8bc14ac4543190227183940",
"vout": 0,
"scriptSig": {
"asm": "",
"hex": ""
},
"sequence": 4294967295
}
],
"vout": [
{
"value": 0.20000000,
"n": 0,
"scriptPubKey": {
"asm": "OP_DUP OP_HASH160 6e751b60fcb566418c6b9f68bfa51438aefbe094 OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG",
"hex": "76a9146e751b60fcb566418c6b9f68bfa51438aefbe09488ac",
"reqSigs": 1,
"type": "pubkeyhash",
"addresses": [
"mqazutWCSnuYqEpLBznke2ooGimyCtwCh8"
]
}
}
]
}
We can confirm that this is unsigned because the unlocking script or scriptSig is empty. We now need to sign this transaction before it becames a valid transaction.
$ ./bitcoin-cli signrawtransactionwithwallet 01000000014039182702194345ac14bcc8ea624a72710b6279c1d5a43de8a972344d46b7b30000000000ffffffff01002d3101000000001976a9146e751b60fcb566418c6b9f68bfa51438aefbe09488ac00000000
{
"hex": "01000000014039182702194345ac14bcc8ea624a72710b6279c1d5a43de8a972344d46b7b3000000006a4730440220404082ecae0b088e07647a5a4eb5c71626e001cbca9353bb6f7e6b212f0f95d002202cdadf64f31b11e1901134abe7917d74105953aa983db099504891696277b86d01210306a6ae64fbb424a81260a6c47f3cb52eec39c4b40ded8b05e150458b95ea6465ffffffff01002d3101000000001976a9146e751b60fcb566418c6b9f68bfa51438aefbe09488ac00000000",
"complete": true
}
Now we have the final signed raw transaction. If we use decoderawtransaction now you will see the unlocking script is properly set. We can test if this is a valid transaction before sending it to the node for broadcasting with the mempoolaccept command. Finally, we need to send it to the node for broadcasting.
$ ./bitcoin-cli sendrawtransaction 01000000014039182702194345ac14bcc8ea624a72710b6279c1d5a43de8a972344d46b7b3000000006a4730440220404082ecae0b088e07647a5a4eb5c71626e001cbca9353bb6f7e6b212f0f95d002202cdadf64f31b11e1901134abe7917d74105953aa983db099504891696277b86d01210306a6ae64fbb424a81260a6c47f3cb52eec39c4b40ded8b05e150458b95ea6465ffffffff01002d3101000000001976a9146e751b60fcb566418c6b9f68bfa51438aefbe09488ac00000000
error code: -26, error message:, 256: absurdly-high-fee
In this instance we get an error saying that the transaction has an exceptionally high fee. We have not specified any output for change so 1.1 bitcoins would be given to miners (1.3-0.2). Most wallets have similar protection mechanisms to help safeguard from user errors.
JSON-RPC is a simple protocol that specifies how to communicate with remote procedure calls using JSON as the format. It can be used with several transport protocols but most typically it is used over HTTP.
A user name and password has to be provided in bitcoin.conf. By default only local connections are allowed, but other connections can be allowed for trusted IPs with the rpcallowip configuration option.
rpcuser=kostas
rpcpassword=too_long_to_guess
Then we could use a tool like curl to make the JSON-RPC request:
$ curl --user kostas --data-binary '{"jsonrpc": "1.0", "id":"curltest", "method": "getblockcount", "params": [] }' -H 'content-type: text/plain;' http://127.0.0.1:18332/
Enter host password for user ‘kostas’:
{
“result”: 1746817,
“error”: null,
“id”: “curltest”
}
Thus, we can also send the commands seen before to construct transactions via JSON-RPC.
A Python library that wraps Bitcoin’s API calls is python-bitcoinrpc. Install with pip and try it out.
from bitcoinrpc.authproxy import AuthServiceProxy, JSONRPCException
# user and pw are rpcuser and rpcpassword respectively
user = "kostas"
pw = "too_long_to_guess" # bad practice !!
rpc_connection = AuthServiceProxy("http://%s:%s@127.0.0.1:18332"%(user, pw))
block_count = rpc_connection.getblockcount()
print(block_count)
All API calls can be used, including the ones to create a transaction with either sendtoaddress or createrawtransaction + signrawtransaction + sendrawtransaction.
The Bitcoin node allows the creation of the basic transactions. It does not support arbitrary scripts. We can create those programmatically by explicitly specifying the locking/unlocking conditions. We will use the python-bitcoin-utils library that can be installed easily with $ pip install bitcoin-utils in your working python environment.
There are several examples included in the library that you can consult, like the most common transaction, a P2PKH payment with one input and two outputs (the second output being the change).
# Copyright (C) 2018-2020 The python-bitcoin-utils developers
#
# This file is part of python-bitcoin-utils
#
# It is subject to the license terms in the LICENSE file found in the top-level
# directory of this distribution.
#
# No part of python-bitcoin-utils, including this file, may be copied,
# modified, propagated, or distributed except according to the terms contained
# in the LICENSE file.
from bitcoinutils.setup import setup
from bitcoinutils.utils import to_satoshis
from bitcoinutils.transactions import Transaction, TxInput, TxOutput
from bitcoinutils.keys import P2pkhAddress, PrivateKey
from bitcoinutils.script import Script
def main():
# always remember to setup the network
setup('testnet')
# create transaction input from tx id of UTXO (contained 0.4 tBTC)
txin = TxInput('fb48f4e23bf6ddf606714141ac78c3e921c8c0bebeb7c8abb2c799e9ff96ce6c', 0)
# create transaction output using P2PKH scriptPubKey (locking script)
addr = P2pkhAddress('n4bkvTyU1dVdzsrhWBqBw8fEMbHjJvtmJR')
txout = TxOutput(to_satoshis(0.1), Script(['OP_DUP', 'OP_HASH160', addr.to_hash160(),
'OP_EQUALVERIFY', 'OP_CHECKSIG']) )
# create another output to get the change - remaining 0.01 is tx fees
# note that this time we used to_script_pub_key() to create the P2PKH
# script
change_addr = P2pkhAddress('mmYNBho9BWQB2dSniP1NJvnPoj5EVWw89w')
change_txout = TxOutput(to_satoshis(0.29), change_addr.to_script_pub_key())
#change_txout = TxOutput(to_satoshis(0.29), Script(['OP_DUP', 'OP_HASH160',
# change_addr.to_hash160(),
# 'OP_EQUALVERIFY', 'OP_CHECKSIG']))
# create transaction from inputs/outputs -- default locktime is used
tx = Transaction([txin], [txout, change_txout])
# print raw transaction
print("\nRaw unsigned transaction:\n" + tx.serialize())
# use the private key corresponding to the address that contains the
# UTXO we are trying to spend to sign the input
sk = PrivateKey('cRvyLwCPLU88jsyj94L7iJjQX5C2f8koG4G2gevN4BeSGcEvfKe9')
# note that we pass the scriptPubkey as one of the inputs of sign_input
# because it is used to replace the scriptSig of the UTXO we are trying to
# spend when creating the transaction digest
from_addr = P2pkhAddress('myPAE9HwPeKHh8FjKwBNBaHnemApo3dw6e')
sig = sk.sign_input( tx, 0, Script(['OP_DUP', 'OP_HASH160',
from_addr.to_hash160(), 'OP_EQUALVERIFY',
'OP_CHECKSIG']) )
# get public key as hex
pk = sk.get_public_key().to_hex()
# set the scriptSig (unlocking script)
txin.script_sig = Script([sig, pk])
signed_tx = tx.serialize()
# print raw signed transaction ready to be broadcasted
print("\nRaw signed transaction:\n" + signed_tx)
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
This produces the serialized raw transaction in hexadecimal. We can then use sendrawtransaction to send this to the Bitcoin network. Notice that bitcoin-utils wraps the python-bitcoinrpc library in a proxy object so that we can send to a node directly from our python program.