Install and start Bitcoin Daemon

#

Step - 1: Download and install bitcoin-core

#

Download bitcoin-core from Here

Select your prefered install location and complete the installation.

Step - 2: Running Bitcoin-core in regtest mode

#

Open Command Prompt or PowerShell and cd into the installed directory.

$ cd "C:/Program Files/Bitcoin/daemon"

You will see these file in the directory,

    Directory: C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\daemon


Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
-a----          6/1/2022   6:20 PM        2004480 .\bitcoin-cli.exe
-a----          6/1/2022   6:20 PM        2590720 bitcoin-tx.exe
-a----          6/1/2022   6:20 PM        6928384 bitcoin-wallet.exe
-a----          6/1/2022   6:20 PM       11921408 bitcoind.exe

Start the daemon by entering ,

$.\bitcoind -regtest

Now your bitcoin node is running in regtest mode.

Basic CLI commands in regtest mode

#

Creating a wallet

#

To test basic commands keep the previous console opened and start a new one.
Before doing anything we need to create a wallet by giving it a name. We do that by,

$ .\bitcoin-cli -regtest createwallet "your-wallet-name"

Now a wallet has been created and selected. You can check your Wallet info via,

$ .\bitcoin-cli -regtest getwalletinfo

Generating a new address

#

To generate blocks we need to get an address first. We do that by,

$ .\bitcoin-cli -regtest getnewaddress

It will give you a hash value as an address ; you should copy this address and generate 101 blocks with the command shown in the next step.

$ .\bitcoin-cli -regtest generatetoaddress 101 your-hash-string

In the console it will output the generated blocks and you will be able to check your balance up next.

Checking balance and making transactions

#

To check balance the CLI command is,

$ .\bitcoin-cli -regtest getbalance

The output should be 50.00 or more if you have followed previous steps correctly.

Making Transactions

#

To simulate transactions between two address we need to generate a new address. So we again generate a new address by using ,

$ .\bitcoin-cli -regtest getnewaddress

suppose the address we got from here is second-hash

We are going to send 20 bitcoin to this address. So we will be using -named flag to set the address , amount and fee rate.

$ .\bitcoin-cli -regtest -named sendtoaddress address=second-hash amount=20.0 fee_rate=2

Be sure to change second-hash with the address you got previously {: .prompt-info }

if the transaction is successful it will show a transaction ID.

If you want to get detailed information about the transaction you can use the command below.

$ .\bitcoin-cli -regtest gettransaction <transaction-id>

And those were some basic functionalities of bitcoin-core in regtest mode. You can read further from https://developer.bitcoin.org/index.html

Common Errors

#

Type 1:

#

error: timeout on transient error: Could not connect to the server 127.0.0.1:18333 (error code 1 - "EOF reached")

Make sure the bitcoind server is running and that you are connecting to the correct RPC port.

This happens when your bitcoind server doesn’t initiate properly . Check if you have done this step properly.