Bitcoin Testing
The recommended approach to start a local Bitcoin node for testing is to use "regtest" mode. If you have downloaded Bitcoin Core from bitcoin.org use bitcoind -regtest to start a regtest node. To create and fund the "Alice" wallet, use the following bitcoin-cli commands:
bitcoin-cli -regtest createwallet Alice
ALICE_ADDRESS=$(bitcoin-cli -regtest -rpcwallet=Alice getnewaddress)
bitcoin-cli -regtest generatetoaddress 101 ${ALICE_ADDRESS}
Funds from the coinbase transaction need 100 confirmations to be spendable, so make sure to mine a sufficient number of blocks.
We also have a docker-compose.yml setup script in the BOB repository to run the Bitcoin daemon, fund the "Alice" wallet and mine a block every ten seconds. This will also run the Esplora backend to index the local chain and provide a REST API. For a more complete development environment check out Nigiri Bitcoin which also packages a Liquid daemon and an Electrum server.
To create and send funds to the "Bob" wallet, use the following commands:
bitcoin-cli -regtest createwallet Bob
BOB_ADDRESS=$(bitcoin-cli -regtest -rpcwallet=Bob getnewaddress)
bitcoin-cli -regtest -rpcwallet=Alice -named sendtoaddress address=${BOB_ADDRESS} amount=$(bitcoin-cli -regtest -rpcwallet=Alice getbalance) subtractfeefromamount=true
To use a supported Graphical User Interface (GUI) instead, terminate the bitcoind process and run bitcoin-qt instead:
