MacOS

Bitcoin Core

Dependencies

Install dependencies Python 3.12.3, Homebrew and Xcode.

warning

Python version above 3.12.3 did not work for me. I got errors later with Lightning Network.

Other dependencies:

brew install autoconf automake libtool gnu-sed gettext libsodium protobuf
export PATH="/usr/local/opt:$PATH"

Python dependencies:

pip install --upgrade pip
pip install poetry
pip install --user pyln-client websockets

If you don't have SQLite you need to install it:

brew install sqlite
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/sqlite/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/sqlite/include"

For Macs with Apple Silicon we need to make sure that the library paths are correct when using homebrew:

export CPATH=/opt/homebrew/include
export LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/homebrew/lib

Installing Bitcoin Core

The easiest way to install Bitcoin Core is downloading it from bitcoincore.org, decompressing it and dragging it to our applications folder.

info

There is also the option to compile Bitcoin Core from the source code.

To be able to run it, besides opening it from applications we need to grant it permissions in System Settings > Privacy & Security. Scroll down and click the Open Anyway button.

At the initial configuration we choose the default directory along with the option of 1 GB.

Bitcoin Core will synchronize and download the entire blockchain, and that will take a lot of time depending on your computer and internet connection.

warning

Synchronizing the entire blockchain could take a lot of time or even days.

danger

In this guide we will not synchronize the entire blockchain, we will use a Prune Node, and we will use the regtest network.

Open the Bitcoin Core app and we will go to the preferences of the application. In the main tab we will open the configuration file of Bitcoin Core click the button that says Open Configuration File and add the following:

bitcoin.conf

regtest=1

[main]
prune=550

[regtest]
rcpport=18443
rpcuser=foo
rpcpassword=bar

Restart the Bitcoin Core application and wait until it is synchronized.

This will reduce the time of synchronization as well as the disk space we need.

After synchronizing the blockchain, close the Bitcoin Core graphical application, we need to run bitcoin core in the terminal, so we need to install it from homebrew:

brew install bitcoin

Homebrew will install bitcoind and bitcoin-cli.

Running Bitcoin for Development

Open two terminal windows or tabs:

• In the first terminal we are going to run bitcoind which will run the bitcoin node and synchronize the blockchain (if we haven't synchronized it before).

bitcoind

• In the second terminal we are going to run bitcoin-cli which will show the info of the node.

bitcoin-cli getblockchaininfo

If everything goes well we should see something like this:

getblockchaininfo output

{
  "chain": "main",
  "blocks": 1,
  "headers": 1,
  "bestblockhash": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
  "difficulty": 1,
  "mediantime": 0,
  "verificationprogress": 1,
  "initialblockdownload": true,
  "chainwork": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
  "size_on_disk": 0,
  "pruned": true,
  "pruneheight": 0,
  "automatic_pruning": true,
  "prune_target_size": 0,
  "softforks": [],
  "warnings": ""
}

info

All requests made with bitcoin-cli will be in JSON format.

note

If you are developing applications only for Bitcoin without touching the Lightning Network, you can skip the rest of this guide. And your next steps will be finishing synchronizing the blockchain with bitcoind and then using bitcoin-cli.

Installing Lightning

Let's download the repository:

git clone https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning.git
cd lightning

Compile and install lightning:

poetry install
./configure
poetry run make

warning

I’m using a version manager like ASDF, so I had to specify the Poetry path in my .zshrc file.

We need to run bitcoind, lightningd and lightning-cli in the background with the --regtest flag:

bitcoind &
./lightningd/lightningd --regtest &
./cli/lightning-cli --regtest help

Run the testnet of lighning (in fact regtest, but I will explain it later in another guide):

. contrib/startup_regtest.sh

The command above is a script that will run bitcoind, bitcion-cli, lightningd and lightning-cli. And we get the following output with some basic commands.

. contrib/startup_regtest.sh output

Useful commands:
  start_ln 3: start three nodes, l1, l2, l3
  connect 1 2: connect l1 and l2
  fund_nodes: connect all nodes with channels, in a row
  stop_ln: shutdown
  destroy_ln: remove ln directories

The command start_ln will create a pair of nodes in the lightning network (l1 and l2).

start_ln

Also we will get a list of commands to interact with each node:

start_ln output

Bitcoin Core starting
awaiting bitcoind...
Loading "default" bitcoind wallet.
[1] 10459
[2] 10463
Commands:
        l1-cli, l1-log,
        l2-cli, l2-log,
        bt-cli, stop_ln, fund_nodes
timed out parsing log /tmp/l1/log

We will get the information of one of the nodes (l1).

l1-cli getinfo

info

All requests made with lightning will be in JSON format.

getinfo output

{
   "id": "02d44e9a844e84ab76d412601c8e648ce039b8266874ddfe5b854fb6723096ea06",
   "alias": "SLICKERROUTE-v24.11-91-g9e29bde",
   "color": "02d44e",
   "num_peers": 0,
   "num_pending_channels": 0,
   "num_active_channels": 0,
   "num_inactive_channels": 0,
   "address": [],
   "binding": [
      {
         "type": "ipv4",
         "address": "127.0.0.1",
         "port": 7171
      }
   ],
   "version": "v24.11-91-g9e29bde",
   "blockheight": 109,
   "network": "regtest",
   "fees_collected_msat": 0,
   "lightning-dir": "/tmp/l1/regtest",
   "our_features": {
      "init": "8008a0882a8a59a1",
      "node": "8088a0882a8a59a1",
      "channel": "",
      "invoice": "02000002024100"
   }
}

Now we are going to add some funds (a few satoshis) to the nodes:

fund_nodes

Awesome!!

We get the funds of the node l1:

l1-cli listfunds

The amount_msat property is the amount in satoshis.

listfunds output

{
   "outputs": [
      {
         "txid": "3383b42043c96d072f1a22f11ea1e4039bb93176f13d397178a6eb13cb7113e2",
         "output": 1,
         "amount_msat": 98999834000,
         "scriptpubkey": "51200e98fba542bc6fda8cb83ae930cebd6f6957f3cb5d2eb49e47a6d0f612473efa",
         "address": "bcrt1pp6v0hf2zh3ha4r9c8t5npn4ada540u7tt5htf8j85mg0vyj88maq9zy237",
         "status": "confirmed",
         "blockheight": 111,
         "reserved": false
      }
   ],
   "channels": [
      {
         "peer_id": "02fed4dea6a6bc7dcc8d7bb4c88aa452fc4cd3878949851b4c0c23e71eebfc751f",
         "connected": true,
         "state": "CHANNELD_NORMAL",
         "channel_id": "8274abbaeb547055d57f07337965eadea778c7e0344dd6d1b55257746cd85288",
         "short_channel_id": "111x1x0",
         "our_amount_msat": 1000000000,
         "amount_msat": 1100000000,
         "funding_txid": "3383b42043c96d072f1a22f11ea1e4039bb93176f13d397178a6eb13cb7113e2",
         "funding_output": 0
      }
   ]
}

note

Congratulations!! Now we can build applications on Bitcoin and Lightning Network. ...well, kind of. Al least we can start experimenting with it.