Bitcore – A pure JavaScript Bitcoin API

by eordano • 12 years ago

138 29 12 years ago

PhrosTT• 12 years ago

Looks awesome. Cryptocurrency development has seemed pretty intimidating to me but this is probably the going to be the push that gets me started supporting tip sharing features on my site.

billrobertson42• 12 years ago

Coinbase has easy integration of that does it not?

IkmoIkmo2• 12 years ago

Look into Coinbase's tip service: https://www.coinbase.com/tip

As well as ChangeTip: https://www.changetip.com/

It might be what you're looking for, unless you want to custom build something. In that case also give Chain.com a look as well as Blockcypher.com.

Coinbase also has some nice developer products, their api: coinbase.com/docs/api/overview

and if you want to do anything relating to raw bitcoin data (the blockchain and all transactions) i.e., run a node, I'd recommend Toshi.io, an open-source node that is very easy to query. Quite a few people run this thing on an AWS tier.

Hope that helps if you want to dabble with a bitcoin project for your site :)

panhandlr2• 12 years ago

Looks like they built their NSA spy module out of coffeescript, neato

knowaveragejoe• 12 years ago

Huh?

panhandlr2• 12 years ago

In today's climate I would be extremely weary of npm installing any core bitcoin tech without a serious line by line audit of the source.

jxm2622• 12 years ago

This looks very well done! Starred on github :)

afandian2• 12 years ago

This looks more like a library than an API. I wonder why the decision was made to market it this way.

haakon• 12 years ago

All libraries expose an API, which is its set of public functions.

afandian2• 12 years ago

Sure but it seems strange way to discuss it. Unless it's an API that wraps some existing library.

martindale• 12 years ago

You're right – Bitcore is a library that exposes a simple API; we've changed the text on bitcore.io to reflect this. Thanks for the feedback!

jonpaul• 12 years ago

It's an exciting time to be a JavaScript developer for Bitcoin. There are a number of JavaScript libraries for Bitcoin. Here is a comprehensive list of alternatives to Bitcore:

- https://github.com/bitcoinjs/bitcoinjs-lib (one of the best)

- https://github.com/indutny/bcoin (Indutny's work is found throughout Node.js and is the basis of elliptic curve cryptography in Bitcore)

- https://github.com/ryanxcharles/fullnode (ex-developer of Bitcore and now engineer at Reddit behind Reddit's crypto currency initiative)

- http://cryptocoinjs.com/ (disclosure: I started this one)

Here is an older article that I wrote about understanding how an Address is created (still valid, but using an older version of bitcoinjs-lib): http://procbits.com/2013/08/27/generating-a-bitcoin-address-...

The cool thing is that you can use test Bitcoins without any risk to learn how to program for Bitcoin. Use these faucets: http://tpfaucet.appspot.com/ and http://faucet.xeno-genesis.com/

Here is a very simple wallet that I built to demonstrate how easy it is to build one: https://github.com/coinbolt/simple-wallet

Finally, an open source app to test the purchasing experience of Bitcoin: https://github.com/coinbolt/catshop

lectrick• 12 years ago

Since you'd be the most likely person to know here, what javascript VM's will give you known-secure PRNG's, and which won't?

I think that's a pretty important thing to clarify if you're creating/signing transactions via JS.

bgfuller• 12 years ago

A deterministic K is used in many of these libraries, so randomness isn't needed at the time of signing transactions. window.crypto and the Node.js crypto library are often used for private key generation.

omarforgotpwd• 12 years ago

Awesome project. Hopefully nobody makes anything serious using it in the browser.

jordanbaucke• 12 years ago

I am wondering if anyone has some thoughts on the security of this in a web-application? Storing the private keys in a database connected to one's web-app is just a bad idea right? So than it just becomes a proxy to the Bitcoind installation via JSON-RPC? Would it be considered safe to encrypt user's private keys via their password+hash+salt the same way I'm storing their passwords?

eordano• 12 years ago

Yep, storing your bitcoins in a plain web app is definitely a bad idea. The current trend in the bitcoin space is a mixture of:

* Discouraging the use of the webapp (if any available) in favor of a browser application (chrome app, firefox app, etc)

* 2 factor auth to login

* Bitcoin "multisig" transactions: require at least N out of M valid private keys (allowing the storage of these keys to be on different devices/services/media) before releasing funds

And of course encryption before storage.

ytimoschenko• 12 years ago

Core Bitcoin: https://github.com/oleganza/CoreBitcoin

Bitcoin Core: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin

Now it is Bitcore. Project names are hardly distinguishable, feels kind of messy.

Humjob• 12 years ago

I have a question about bitcoin in general - how do transactions on the network get verified? Does it mostly happen through miners? If so, what happens when mining reaches the point where it becomes economically worthless to everyone except a few electricity thieves? Will there just be a massive backlog of unprocessed transactions?

Unless I'm wrong somehow, I could see this becoming especially problematic as bitcoin becomes more popular and the daily transaction volume grows. How does the bitcoin foundation/community plan to tackle this issue?

gus_massa• 12 years ago

Transaction Fees: http://bitcoinfees.com/

The fees go to the miners to incentivise them to keep mining, which in turn keeps the Bitcoin network secure. They already get a reward of 25 XBT for each block they mine, but this reward halves every 4 years. The plan is that as the block reward diminishes over the time, it will be replaced by transaction fees.

rockyleal• 12 years ago

This is clearly not the place to ask this question about mining. This is a thread about a software development on a whole different side of Bitcoin. If you are genuinely curious about the theme of your question, and not just interested in derailing threads, you are very welcome to educate yourself at bitcointalk, the main Bitcoin forum. There have been thousands -if not millions- of man hours in thinking, development, research and debate about the topics you enquire about. Head there and find the answers, and if still in doubt don't be afraid to ask (on an appropriate thread).

Arnavion• 12 years ago

If so, what happens when mining reaches the point where it becomes economically worthless to everyone except a few electricity thieves?

The difficulty of mining is represented by a certain target number. The process of mining involves finding another number (the nonce) such that the hash of the transactions and that nonce together is less than the target. The smaller the target is, the less possible solutions exist, and the more nonces you'd have to guess before you find one that satisfies the condition.

This difficulty is self-adjusting based on how long it took to find the previous 2016 blocks (at an average of 1 block every 10 minutes this is 2 weeks). If the previous 2016 blocks were found faster than an average of 1 every 10 minutes, then the difficulty will be increased so that the next 2016 go closer to 1 every 10 minutes, and vice versa. (There is a clamp on the change of 25% if I remember correctly, so it won't change drastically.)

The assumption in the end is that these few electricity thieves will not have so much hashpower that they will be able to drive up the difficulty so high the rest of the non-thieves can get profits from their miners.

Bitcore – A pure JavaScript Bitcoin API

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