Creating a Simple Transaction

This guide walks you through the steps of creating a simple Bitcoin transaction. To get started, let's explain some basic concepts around Bitcoin transactions.

Understanding and Creating Transactions

Transactions in Bitcoin are mechanisms for transferring value and invoking smart contract logic. The Transaction class in the BSV SDK encapsulates the creation, signing, and broadcasting of transactions, also enabling the use of Bitcoin's scripting language for locking and unlocking coins.

Creating and Signing a Transaction

Consider the scenario where you need to create a transaction. The process involves specifying inputs (where the bitcoins are coming from) and outputs (where they're going). Here's a simplified example:

JavaScript

import { Transaction, PrivateKey, PublicKey, P2PKH, ARC } from '@bsv/sdk'

const privKey = PrivateKey.fromWif('...') // Your P2PKH private key
const changePrivKey = PrivateKey.fromWif('...') // Change private key (never re-use addresses)
const recipientAddress = '1Fd5F7XR8LYHPmshLNs8cXSuVAAQzGp7Hc' // Address of the recipient

const tx = new Transaction()

// Add the input
tx.addInput({
  sourceTransaction: Transaction.fromHex('...'), // The source transaction where the output you are spending was created,
  sourceOutputIndex: 0, // The output index in the source transaction
  unlockingScriptTemplate: new P2PKH().unlock(privKey), // The script template you are using to unlock the output, in this case P2PKH
})

// Pay an output to a recipient using the P2PKH locking template
tx.addOutput({
  lockingScript: new P2PKH().lock(recipientAddress),
  satoshis: 2500
})

// Send remainder back the change
tx.addOutput({
  lockingScript: new P2PKH().lock(changePrivKey.toPublicKey().toHash()),
  change: true
})

// Now we can compute the fee and sign the transaction
await tx.fee()
await tx.sign()

// Finally, we broadcast it with ARC.
// get your api key from https://console.taal.com
const apiKey = 'mainnet_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' // replace
await tx.broadcast(new ARC('https://api.taal.com/arc', apiKey))

Go

This code snippet demonstrates creating a transaction, adding an input and an output, setting a change script, configuring the fee, signing the transaction, and broadcasting with the ARC broadcaster. It uses the P2PKH Template, which is a specific type of Bitcoin locking program. To learn more about templates, check out this example (link to be provided once cmpplete).

Handling Hex Locking Scripts

Moving beyond this basic example into more advanced use-cases enables you to start dealing with custom scripts. If you're provided with a hex-encoded locking script for an output, you can set it directly in the transaction's output as follows:

transaction.addOutput({
  lockingScript: Script.fromHex('76a9....88ac'), // Hex-encoded locking script
  satoshis: 2500 // Number of satoshis
})

The Transaction class abstracts the complexity of Bitcoin's transaction structure. It handles inputs, outputs, scripts, and serialization, offering methods to easily modify and interrogate the transaction. Check out the full code-level documentation, refer to other examples, or reach out to the community to learn more.

Configuring the ARC with http client

The ARC broadcaster requires an HTTP client to broadcast transactions. By default, the SDK will try to search for window.fetch in browser or https module on Node.js. If you want to use a custom (or preconfigured) HTTP client, you can pass it as an argument to the ARC constructor:

fetch

// In this example we're assuming you have variable fetch holding the fetch function`

const arc = new ARC('https://api.taal.com/arc', apiKey, {fetch})

https

Because ARC is assuming concrete interface of the http client, we're providing an adapter for https module. You can use it as follows:

// In this example we're assuming you have variable https holding the https module loaded for example with `require('https')`

const arc = new ARC('https://api.taal.com/arc', apiKey, new NodejsHttpClient(https))

axios

Although the SDK is not providing adapters for axios, it can be easily used with the ARC broadcaster. You can make your own "adapter" for axios as follows:

const axiosHttpClient = { fetch: (url, options) => axios(url, {...options, data: options.body})}

new ARC('https://api.taal.com/arc', apiKey, axiosHttpClient) 

other libraries

Although the SDK is not providing adapters for other libraries, you can easily create your own adapter by implementing the HttpClient interface. Please look at the example for axios above to see how easy it can be done.