Mastering Bitcoin

Table of contents

1. Praise for Mastering Bitcoin
2. Preface
   1. Writing the Bitcoin Book
   2. Intended Audience
   3. Why Are There Bugs on the Cover?
   4. Conventions Used in This Book
   5. Code Examples
   6. Using Code Examples
   7. Safari® Books Online
   8. How to Contact Us
   9. Acknowledgments
      1. Early Release Draft (GitHub Contributions)
3. Quick Glossary
4. 1. Introduction
   1. What Is Bitcoin?
   2. History of Bitcoin
   3. Bitcoin Uses, Users, and Their Stories
   4. Getting Started
      1. Quick Start
      2. Getting Your First Bitcoins
      3. Sending and Receiving Bitcoins
5. 2. How Bitcoin Works
   1. Transactions, Blocks, Mining, and the Blockchain
      1. Bitcoin Overview
      2. Buying a Cup of Coffee
   2. Bitcoin Transactions
      1. Common Transaction Forms
   3. Constructing a Transaction
      1. Getting the Right Inputs
      2. Creating the Outputs
      3. Adding the Transaction to the Ledger
         1. Transmitting the transaction
         2. How it propagates
         3. Bob’s view
   4. Bitcoin Mining
   5. Mining Transactions in Blocks
   6. Spending the Transaction
6. 3. The Bitcoin Client
   1. Bitcoin Core: The Reference Implementation
      1. Running Bitcoin Core for the First Time
      2. Compiling Bitcoin Core from the Source Code
   2. Using Bitcoin Core’s JSON-RPC API from the Command Line
      1. Getting Information on the Bitcoin Core Client Status
      2. Wallet Setup and Encryption
      3. Wallet Backup, Plain-text Dump, and Restore
      4. Wallet Addresses and Receiving Transactions
      5. Exploring and Decoding Transactions
      6. Exploring Blocks
      7. Creating, Signing, and Submitting Transactions Based on Unspent Outputs
   3. Alternative Clients, Libraries, and Toolkits
      1. Libbitcoin and sx Tools
         1. Installing sx
      2. pycoin
      3. btcd
         1. Installing btcd
         2. Controlling btcd
7. 4. Keys, Addresses, Wallets
   1. Introduction
      1. Public Key Cryptography and Cryptocurrency
      2. Private and Public Keys
      3. Private Keys
         1. Generating a private key from a random number
      4. Public Keys
      5. Elliptic Curve Cryptography Explained
      6. Generating a Public Key
   2. Bitcoin Addresses
      1. Base58 and Base58Check Encoding
      2. Key Formats
         1. Private key formats
         2. Decode from Base58Check to hex
         3. Encode from hex to Base58Check
         4. Encode from hex (compressed key) to Base58Check encoding
         5. Public key formats
         6. Compressed public keys
         7. Compressed private keys
   3. Implementing Keys and Addresses in Python
   4. Wallets
      1. Nondeterministic (Random) Wallets
      2. Deterministic (Seeded) Wallets
      3. Mnemonic Code Words
      4. Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets (BIP0032/BIP0044)
         1. HD wallet creation from a seed
         2. Private child key derivation
         3. Using derived child keys
         4. Extended keys
         5. Public child key derivation
         6. Hardened child key derivation
         7. Index numbers for normal and hardened derivation
         8. HD wallet key identifier (path)
         9. Navigating the HD wallet tree structure
         10. Experimenting with HD wallets using sx tools
   5. Advanced Keys and Addresses
      1. Encrypted Private Keys (BIP0038)
      2. Pay-to-Script Hash (P2SH) and Multi-Sig Addresses
         1. Multi-signature addresses and P2SH
      3. Vanity Addresses
         1. Generating vanity addresses
         2. Vanity address security
      4. Paper Wallets
8. 5. Transactions
   1. Introduction
   2. Transaction Lifecycle
      1. Creating Transactions
      2. Broadcasting Transactions to the Bitcoin Network
      3. Propagating Transactions on the Bitcoin Network
   3. Transaction Structure
   4. Transaction Outputs and Inputs
      1. Transaction Outputs
         1. Spending conditions (encumbrances)
      2. Transaction Inputs
      3. Transaction Fees
      4. Adding Fees to Transactions
   5. Transaction Chaining and Orphan Transactions
   6. Transaction Scripts and Script Language
      1. Script Construction (Lock + Unlock)
      2. Scripting Language
      3. Turing Incompleteness
      4. Stateless Verification
   7. Standard Transactions
      1. Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash (P2PKH)
      2. Pay-to-Public-Key
      3. Multi-Signature
      4. Data Output (OP_RETURN)
      5. Pay-to-Script-Hash (P2SH)
         1. Pay-to-script-hash addresses
         2. Benefits of pay-to-script-hash
         3. Redeem script and isStandard validation
9. 6. The Bitcoin Network
   1. Peer-to-Peer Network Architecture
   2. Nodes Types and Roles
   3. The Extended Bitcoin Network
   4. Network Discovery
   5. Full Nodes
   6. Exchanging “Inventory”
   7. Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) Nodes
   8. Bloom Filters
   9. Bloom Filters and Inventory Updates
   10. Transaction Pools
   11. Alert Messages
10. 7. The Blockchain
    1. Introduction
    2. Structure of a Block
    3. Block Header
    4. Block Identifiers: Block Header Hash and Block Height
    5. The Genesis Block
    6. Linking Blocks in the Blockchain
    7. Merkle Trees
    8. Merkle Trees and Simplified Payment Verification (SPV)
11. 8. Mining and Consensus
    1. Introduction
       1. Bitcoin Economics and Currency Creation
    2. Decentralized Consensus
    3. Independent Verification of Transactions
    4. Mining Nodes
    5. Aggregating Transactions into Blocks
       1. Transaction Age, Fees, and Priority
       2. The Generation Transaction
       3. Coinbase Reward and Fees
       4. Structure of the Generation Transaction
       5. Coinbase Data
    6. Constructing the Block Header
    7. Mining the Block
       1. Proof-Of-Work Algorithm
       2. Difficulty Representation
       3. Difficulty Target and Retargeting
    8. Successfully Mining the Block
    9. Validating a New Block
    10. Assembling and Selecting Chains of Blocks
        1. Blockchain Forks
    11. Mining and the Hashing Race
        1. The Extra Nonce Solution
        2. Mining Pools
           1. Managed pools
           2. P2Pool
    12. Consensus Attacks
12. 9. Alternative Chains, Currencies, and Applications
    1. A Taxonomy of Alternative Currencies and Chains
    2. Meta Coin Platforms
       1. Colored Coins
       2. Mastercoin
       3. Counterparty
    3. Alt Coins
       1. Evaluating an Alt Coin
       2. Monetary Parameter Alternatives: Litecoin, Dogecoin, Freicoin
          1. Litecoin
          2. Dogecoin
          3. Freicoin
       3. Consensus Innovation: Peercoin, Myriad, Blackcoin, Vericoin, NXT
          1. Peercoin
          2. Myriad
          3. Blackcoin
          4. VeriCoin
          5. NXT
       4. Dual-Purpose Mining Innovation: Primecoin, Curecoin, Gridcoin
          1. Primecoin
          2. Curecoin
          3. Gridcoin
       5. Anonymity-Focused Alt Coins: CryptoNote, Bytecoin, Monero, Zerocash/Zerocoin, Darkcoin
          1. Zerocoin/Zerocash
          2. CryptoNote
          3. Bytecoin
          4. Monero
          5. Darkcoin
    4. Noncurrency Alt Chains
       1. Namecoin
       2. Bitmessage
       3. Ethereum
    5. Future of Currencies
13. 10. Bitcoin Security
    1. Security Principles
       1. Developing Bitcoin Systems Securely
       2. The Root of Trust
    2. User Security Best Practices
       1. Physical Bitcoin Storage
       2. Hardware Wallets
       3. Balancing Risk
       4. Diversifying Risk
       5. Multi-sig and Governance
       6. Survivability
    3. Conclusion
14. A. Transaction Script Language Operators, Constants, and Symbols
15. B. Bitcoin Improvement Proposals
16. C. pycoin, ku, and tx
    1. Key Utility (KU)
       1. Transaction Utility (TX)
17. D. Available Commands with sx Tools
18. Index
19. Colophon
20. Copyright