bitnsbot

@bitnsbot

Bitcoin blockchain explorer and events notification bot. It can send notifications on watched addresses and transactions. It also sends various information and statistics on Bitcoin network

Mini App

How to run

Prerequisites

• Bitcoin Core 31+ node running with RPC, REST, ZMQ notification and transactions index enabled. Fully synced and not pruned
• telegram-bot-api running locally on the same machine

Command-line flags

Flag	Default	Description
-bot-token	(required)	Telegram bot token used to authenticate outbound Bot API calls
-listen	:8080	Address the webhook server listens on
-webhook-path	/bot	Path the Bot API server will POST updates to
-webhook-url		URL the Bot API server should send updates to, e.g. http://localhost:8080/bot
-api-base-url	http://localhost:8081	Base URL of the local telegram-bot-api server
-secret-token		Optional secret checked against the X-Telegram-Bot-Api-Secret-Token header
-register-webhook	true	Call setWebhook on startup
-db	watches.db	Path to the database
-core-url		Bitcoin Core JSON-RPC URL, e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8332 (leave empty to skip connecting to the node)
-core-user		Bitcoin Core RPC username (or use -core-cookie)
-core-pass		Bitcoin Core RPC password (or use -core-cookie)
-core-cookie		Path to Bitcoin Core's .cookie file, an alternative to -core-user/-core-pass
-core-zmq		Comma-separated ZMQ endpoints publishing hashblock and rawtx, e.g. tcp://127.0.0.1:28332,tcp://127.0.0.1:28333
-core-rest		Base URL of Bitcoin Core's REST interface for building the address index (empty disables indexing)
-backup		Path to copy the database to periodically (empty disables backups)
-backup-interval	24h	How often to back up the database
-backup-script		Command run after each backup, with the backup path as $1 and in $BACKUP_FILE
-verbose	0	Log verbosity: 0 = ERR/WARN/status, 1 = +INFO, 2 = +NET/DB
-log-no-ts	false	Omit the date and time prefix from each log line
-dbui-listen		Address for the database admin web UI, e.g. 127.0.0.1:8090 (empty disables it; bind to localhost only)
-history-file		Path to a JSON file containing historical BTC/USD rates (same format as blockchain.info/charts/market-price); backfilled from this file on first run instead of fetching over the network
-config		Path to a properties file (name=value lines) with flag values; command-line flags take precedence

Configuration file

Instead of passing all flags on the command line, you can use a properties file. Lines are name=value pairs (without the leading -). Comments start with #.

Example bitnsbot.conf:

# Telegram
bot-token=123456:ABC-DEF1234ghijklmnop
webhook-url=http://127.0.0.1:8082/bot
listen=127.0.0.1:8082
api-base-url=http://localhost:8081

# Database
db=bitnsbot.db

# Bitcoin Core RPC (use either cookie or user/pass)
core-url=http://127.0.0.1:8332
# core-user=rpcuser
# core-pass=rpcpassword
core-cookie=/path/to/.cookie

# Bitcoin Core ZMQ for real-time block/tx notifications
core-zmq=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332,tcp://127.0.0.1:28333

# Bitcoin Core REST for address index
core-rest=http://127.0.0.1:8332

# Backups
backup=/var/backups/bitnsbot.db
backup-interval=24h

# Logging
verbose=1

Running

Build and run:

go test ./... && go build .

With a configuration file:

./bitnsbot -config=bitnsbot.conf

Any flags passed on the command line override values from the config file:

./bitnsbot -config=bitnsbot.conf -verbose=2

With command-line flags only:

./bitnsbot -bot-token=... -webhook-url=http://127.0.0.1:8082/bot -listen=127.0.0.1:8082 -db=bitnsbot.db -core-url=http://127.0.0.1:8332 -core-cookie=cookie -core-rest=http://127.0.0.1:8332 -core-zmq=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332 -verbose=1

Another option: there are scripts to deploy a bot as a systemd service.

Useful tools

advertise - simple command line tool which sends advertising packets with a specific IP to all nodes in Bitcoin network

bboltwui - simple web interface to manage bot database. Embedded into a bot itself

i18n-vet - check translation

addrindex - build transaction history index on addresses. Gather other statistics

Roadmap

• I18N
• Mini App
• Addresses statistics
• Daily statistics. Send every day market, transactions volume, moved coins, etc statistics
• Improve data quality. More reliable and correct answers on addresses