Rust Bitcoin

Library with support for de/serialization, parsing and executing on data-structures and network messages related to Bitcoin.

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[Documentation](https://docs.rs/bitcoin/) Supports (or should support) * De/serialization of Bitcoin protocol network messages * De/serialization of blocks and transactions * Script de/serialization * Private keys and address creation, de/serialization and validation (including full BIP32 support) * PSBT creation, manipulation, merging and finalization * Pay-to-contract support as in Appendix A of the [Blockstream sidechains whitepaper](https://www.blockstream.com/sidechains.pdf) For JSONRPC interaction with Bitcoin Core, it is recommended to use [rust-bitcoincore-rpc](https://github.com/rust-bitcoin/rust-bitcoincore-rpc). ## Known limitations ### Consensus This library **must not** be used for consensus code (i.e. fully validating blockchain data). It technically supports doing this, but doing so is very ill-advised because there are many deviations, known and unknown, between this library and the Bitcoin Core reference implementation. In a consensus based cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin it is critical that all parties are using the same rules to validate data, and this library is simply unable to implement the same rules as Core. Given the complexity of both C++ and Rust, it is unlikely that this will ever be fixed, and there are no plans to do so. Of course, patches to fix specific consensus incompatibilities are welcome. ### Support for 16-bit pointer sizes 16-bit pointer sizes are not supported and we can't promise they will be. If you care about them please let us know, so we can know how large the interest is and possibly decide to support them. ## Documentation Currently can be found on [docs.rs/bitcoin](https://docs.rs/bitcoin/). Patches to add usage examples and to expand on existing docs would be extremely appreciated. ## Contributing Contributions are generally welcome. If you intend to make larger changes please discuss them in an issue before PRing them to avoid duplicate work and architectural mismatches. If you have any questions or ideas you want to discuss please join us in [#bitcoin-rust](https://web.libera.chat/?channel=#bitcoin-rust) on [libera.chat](https://libera.chat). ## Minimum Supported Rust Version (MSRV) This library should always compile with any combination of features (minus `no-std`) on **Rust 1.29** or **Rust 1.47** with `no-std`. Because some dependencies have broken the build in minor/patch releases, to compile with 1.29.0 you will need to run the following version-pinning command: ``` cargo update -p cc --precise "1.0.41" --verbose ``` In order to use the `use-serde` feature or to build the unit tests with 1.29.0, the following version-pinning commands are also needed: ``` cargo update --package "serde" --precise "1.0.98" cargo update --package "serde_derive" --precise "1.0.98" ``` For the feature `base64` to work with 1.29.0 we also need to pin `byteorder`: ``` cargo update -p byteorder --precise "1.3.4" ``` ## Installing Rust Rust can be installed using your package manager of choice or [rustup.rs](https://rustup.rs). The former way is considered more secure since it typically doesn't involve trust in the CA system. But you should be aware that the version of Rust shipped by your distribution might be out of date. Generally this isn't a problem for `rust-bitcoin` since we support much older versions than the current stable one (see MSRV section). ## Building The library can be built and tested using [`cargo`](https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo/): ``` git clone git@github.com:rust-bitcoin/rust-bitcoin.git cd rust-bitcoin cargo build ``` You can run tests with: ``` cargo test ``` Please refer to the [`cargo` documentation](https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/cargo/) for more detailed instructions. ## Pull Requests Every PR needs at least two reviews to get merged. During the review phase maintainers and contributors are likely to leave comments and request changes. Please try to address them, otherwise your PR might get closed without merging after a longer time of inactivity. If your PR isn't ready for review yet please mark it by prefixing the title with `WIP: `. ### CI Pipeline The CI pipeline requires approval before being run on each MR. In order to speed up the review process the CI pipeline can be run locally using [act](https://github.com/nektos/act). The `fuzz` and `Cross` jobs will be skipped when using `act` due to caching being unsupported at this time. We do not *actively* support `act` but will merge PRs fixing `act` issues. ## Policy on Altcoins/Altchains Patches which add support for non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies by adding constants to existing enums (e.g. to set the network message magic-byte sequence) are welcome. Anything more involved will be considered on a case-by-case basis, as the altcoin landscape includes projects which [frequently appear and disappear, and are poorly designed anyway](https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/alts.pdf) and keeping the codebase maintainable is a large priority. In general, things that improve cross-chain compatibility (e.g. support for cross-chain atomic swaps) are more likely to be accepted than things which support only a single blockchain. ## Release Notes See [CHANGELOG.md](CHANGELOG.md). ## Licensing The code in this project is licensed under the [Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license](LICENSE).