Validation of the Bitcoin transaction in Bitcoin Core: A step by step guide
Congratulations on installing Bitcoin Core, the official reference implementation of the Bitcoin protocol! While running a complete node, now there is one step closer to understanding how Bitcoin works. A crucial appearance of Bitcoin is the validation of transactions, which guarantees that each block contains valid transactions and does not contain double expense or other malicious activities.
In this article, we will guide it through the process of validating a Bitcoin transaction using Bitcoin Core.
What does it mean to validate a transaction?
When you send a transaction, your node must verify if it is valid. This implies verifying several conditions:
- Validity of the transaction : Does the transaction contain all the required fields (for example, sender, recipient, quantity)?
- Transaction sequence : Is the transaction in the correct order?
- Quantity and denominations : Are quantities and denominations correct?
Step by step guide to validate a Bitcoin transaction
- Connect to your node : Use
bitcoin-cli
or a gui customer as an electrum to connect to your complete node.
- List all blocks : Execute the
Getbalance ()
command, which returns a list of unconfirmed blocks. This will give you an idea of which transactions are pending.
- Find the transaction you want to validate : Use
Gettransaction ()
with the transaction ID (Txid) or the transaction hash. You can find this by listing all the blocks and looking for the Txid or the hash.
- ** Use
getrawtransaction ()
: This function returns unprocessed transaction data, which is a JSON file that contains all transactions in the block. To access the transaction data, you must useGetblockTemplate ()
To create a block template, then usegetrawtransaction ()
with that template.
- Verify the validity of the transaction : You can validate each transaction individually verifying its fields using tools such as
bcpairs ()
. This command lists all pairs of values in the transaction.
- Verify the sequence order (optional) : If you are concerned about the transaction sequences, you can use
Gettransaction ()
with a specific txid or hash and then verify if it is in the correct sequence usinggetrawtransaction ()
.
Example use case
Suppose you want to validate a transaction that sent $ 100 from its Coldcard wallet (Coldcard wallet ') to the address of another user (
user A
).
* Connect to the node : Execute Bitcoin-Cli Getbalance ()
.
* Find the transaction : Look for the transaction txid or use Gettransaction ()
with a specific hash.
* Use BCPAIRS ()
To validate individual transactions :
`Bash
Bitcoin -cli bcpairs -txn
This will show you all pairs of values in the transaction.
* Verify the sequence order (optional) :
* UseGettransaction ()with a specific txid or hash.
* Verify if it is in the correct sequence usinggetrawtransaction (). For example:
Bash
bitcoin-cli getblocktemplate | bcpairs -txn
Tips and variations
- Use theBCL` command line tool to validate transactions. It provides a more structured way to verify the validity of the transaction.
- If you are using electrum, you can use your incorporated transactions validation tools to simplify the process.
Following these steps and tips, you can validate Bitcoin transactions using Bitcoin Core. Remember that this is just an aspect of Bitcoin’s security characteristics; It is essential to keep your updated node with the latest protocol updates to stay safe.