Let’s Get Started!

First let’s create a folder for our new project, feel free to name it however you’d like.

$ mkdir BitGoProject $ cd BitGoProject $ npm install bitgo

You’ve just installed the BitGo JS SDK, we’ll get started by authenticating our BitGo access token.

Authentication

From our BitGo project folder, we can start developing our codebase. Use your text editor to create a file called authentication.js and enter the following:

Save this and close it out. We’ll be using this to get acclimated to authenticating with BitGo servers and to verify that our access token is valid.

Setup the access token as an environment variable before we run the script.

$ export ACCESS_TOKEN='fcb5dc6200ce9 ... f95c0a1063ed8883'

Let’s double-check to make sure that the environment variable was setup correctly. Enter the following and ensure that the access token that you set is printed to the screen.

$ echo $ACCESS_TOKEN

After verifying that your access token is set, run the following and verify that your output looks similar:

$ node authentication.js $ACCESS_TOKEN BitGoJS library version: 0.11.27 { id: ‘11cfbed2333261c0120hb97ac54015a2’,

client: ‘bitgo’,

user: ‘1182f52d4fe2627d67d914153d99a37c’,

scope:

[ ‘wallet_view_all’,

‘wallet_spend_all’,

‘wallet_manage_all’,

‘wallet_create’,

‘openid’,

‘profile’ ],

created: ‘2015–08–15T22:36:02.424Z’,

expires: ‘2025–08–12T22:36:02.424Z’,

origin: ‘test.bitgo.com’,

label: ‘Test Token’,

unlock:

{ time: ‘2015–08–15T22:36:02.425Z’,

expires: ‘2025–08–12T22:36:02.424Z’,

txValueLimit: 500000000,

txValue: 0 } }

Let’s take a moment to double check our token parameters to ensure that we can follow through with the tutorial, make sure that you have the following:

Your scope includes wallet_create and wallet_spend_all. Your origin is test.bitgo.com. The timestamp under expires is greater than the time you expect it to take you to complete this tutorial. Your txValueLimit is greater than 5 BTC or 500,000,000 Satoshis or any value higher than what we would expect to receive from a reasonable testnet faucet.

Creating a wallet

BitGo users have the benefit of creating Bitcoin wallets that are both protected by a unique password as well as two-factor authentication in the web-client. BitGo wallets have the additional benefit of advanced treasury controls that can allow multiple users to share a wallet with a specific set of policies as well as spending limits and address whitelisting. To create a wallet create a file called createWallet.js and enter and save the following text:

For demonstration purposes, the encrypted xPrv will not be printed out, if you’d like to print them out and store them securely, please feel free to do so.

Once you have verified that your environment variable has been set we can try running createWallet.js. Enter the following and confirm that you are able to view the wallet address:

$ node createWallet.js TESTWALLET WALLETPASS Wallet Created: 2MtbsXjJ5GJRcCPnMruZZpYVUq348mwfKfD { _id: ‘11cff1aab5be51c212a40e5ce91c0ee4’,

id: ‘2MtbsXjJ5GJRcCPnMruZZpYVUq348mwfKfD’,

label: ‘TESTWALLET’,

isActive: true,

type: ‘safehd’,

freeze: {},

adminCount: 1,

disableTransactionNotifications: false,

private: { keychains: [ [Object], [Object], [Object] ] }, permissions: ‘admin,spend,view’,

admin: { users: [ [Object] ] },

tags: [],

spendingAccount: true,

pendingApprovals: [],

confirmedBalance: 0,

balance: 0,

unconfirmedSends: 0,

unconfirmedReceives: 0 }

You’ve officially created your first BitGo wallet through the API! If you log in to your BitGo account you will see a new wallet appear on the main dashboard. This wallet is fully accessible and configurable through both the website as well as the API. The next step will be to fund the wallet so that we can attempt to create a Bitcoin transaction using the wallet. You can grab your wallet address from the id: field. The one that I had created was 2MtbsXjJ5GJRcCPnMruZZpYVUq348mwfKfD. You have two options for funding the address:

Tweet me at @masonic_tweets with your Testnet wallet id / Bitcoin address to receive some Testnet Bitcoin. Warning: This will take longer than the Testnet Faucet. For those seeking instant gratification, enter your address in a Testnet Faucet to receive Testnet Bitcoin.

Checking Address Balance

Once you have sent some Testnet Bitcoin to your wallet, you’ll want to ensure that the Bitcoin are there in your wallet. To do so create a file called getAddressBalance.js with the following code:

To check your balance run the following using your Bitcoin address that was used for receiving Testnet Bitcoin.

$ node getAddressBalance.js 2MxMZR4UozWWoA1phQ48aKuaL6ZoEj9cc9T

Ensure that your response resembles the following, and that your wallet has a positive balance:

Wallet Balance is:

88000000 Satoshis

Once you have a balance in your wallet, you’ll be ready to send off some Bitcoin!

Sending Bitcoin

Sending Bitcoin is made easy with the BitGo JS SDK. All you need is some identifying information for the originating wallet. As well as the destination wallet address and the amount that is to be sent. Create the following script and save it as sendBitcoins.js.

To run the script you will need the following parameters: walletID, walletPassphrase, destinationAddress, amountSatoshis. These parameters will be entered like so:

node sendBitcoin.js <walletId> <walletPassphrase> <destinationAddress> <amountSatoshis>

Run the sendBitcoin.js script on the command line to unlock and send all of the Testnet Bitcoin that you have in the wallet.

node sendBitcoin.js 2Mx8…y7Ca WALLETPASS 2Mxe…JyNA 880000

The response should resemble the following:

Getting wallet.. Balance is: 0.8800 { status: ‘accepted’, tx: ‘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’, hash: ‘97b5cb5d9979aa8f5389a649ee90655c480e02e8552194803f021c2c953243ab’,fee: 3740,feeRate: 10000 }

Congratulations, you made it through the entire lifecycle of a Bitcoin transaction using the BitGo JS SDK!

We’re excited to see what you’ll build next

The BitGo JS SDK helps power and protect some of the largest Bitcoin exchanges and hedge funds around the world. We’re excited to see how the BitGo SDK will help power the next generation of Bitcoin apps. Let us know what you think of the BitGo SDK on Twitter!