Gocoin is a full bitcoin client solution (node + wallet) written in Go language (golang).
The two basic components of the software are:
- client - a bitcoin node that must be connected to Internet
- wallet - a wallet app, that is designed to be used offline
In addition to the client there is an app called downloader that is able to download the block chain at a decent speed. The downloader can be used before you run the client for the first time, but also any time later - e.g. if you had your node inactive for some time and want to quickly sync it up with the network.
The official webpage of the project:
On that webpage you can find all the information from this file, plus much much more (e.g. User Manual).
At least 4GB of system memory is required, though 8GB is highly recommended.
You need to build it using 64 bit Go compiler and run it on 64 bit OS.
The file system where you store the database must support files larger than 4GB.
The wallet app has very little requirements and should work on any platform with a working Go compiler.
For security reasons, use an encrypted swap file and if you decide to store a password in the .secret file,
do it on an encrypted disc.
Since no binaries are provided, in order to build Gocoin youself, you will need the following tools installed in your system:
- Go - http://golang.org/doc/install
- Git - http://git-scm.com/downloads
- Mercurial - http://mercurial.selenic.com/
If they are all properly installed you should be able to execute go, git and hg from your OS's command prompt without a need to specify their full path.
Note: Git and Mercurial are needed only for the automatic go get command to work. You can replace go get with some manual steps and then you do not need these two tools. Read more at Gocoin's webpage.
Two extra packages are needed, that are not included in the default set of Go libraries. You need to download them, before building Gocoin.
go get code.google.com/p/go.crypto/ripemd160
go get code.google.com/p/snappy-go/snappy
You can also use go get to fetch the gocoin sources from GitHub for you:
go get github.com/piotrnar/gocoin
Make sure that the all sources are placed in a proper location within your GOPATH folder, before compiling them (go get should take care of this).
Go to the client/ folder and execute go build there.
Go to the wallet/ folder and execute go build there.
Go to the downloader/ folder and execute go build there.
Go to the tools/ folder and execute:
go build btcversig.go
go build compressdb.go
go build fetchbal.go
go build fetchtx.go
go build importblocks.go
go build type2determ.go
I am sorry to inform you that I will not merge in any pull requests. The reason is that I want to stay the only author of this software and therefore the only holder of the copyrights. If you are missing some functionality that you'd want in, just describe me what you need and I will see what I can do. If you want your specific code in though, please fork and develop your own repo.