Bitcoin-related functions in Bash.

• Synopsis
• Description
  • Base-58
  • bech32
  • Wallet Import Format
  • Extended keys
  • Mnemonics
    • BIP-39
    • Memory Techniques
  • Addresses
  • BIP-85
• Requirements
• TODO
• Feedback
• Related projects
• License

$ git clone https://github.com/grondilu/bitcoin-bash-tools.git
$ . bitcoin-bash-tools/bitcoin.sh

$ openssl rand 32 |wif

$ mnemonic=($(create-mnemonic 128))
$ echo "${mnemonic[@]}"

$ mnemonic-to-seed "${mnemonic[@]}" > seed

$ xkey -s /N < seed
$ ykey -s /N < seed
$ zkey -s /N < seed

$ bitcoinAddress "$(xkey -s /44h/0h/0h/0/0/N < seed |base58 -c)"
$ bitcoinAddress "$(ykey -s /49h/0h/0h/0/0/N < seed |base58 -c)"
$ bitcoinAddress "$(zkey -s /84h/0h/0h/0/0/N < seed |base58 -c)"

$ bip85 wif
$ bip85 mnemo
$ bip85 xprv

$ (cd bitcoin-bash-tools; prove;)

This repository contains bitcoin-related bash functions, allowing bitcoin private keys generation and processing from and to various formats.

To discourage the handling of keys in plain text, most of these functions mainly read and print keys in binary. The base58check version is only read or printed when reading from or writing to a terminal.

base58 is a simple filter implementing Satoshi Nakamoto's binary-to-text encoding. Its interface is inspired from coreutils' base64.

$ openssl rand 20 |base58
2xkZS9xy8ViTSrJejTjgd2RpkZRn

With the -c option, the checksum is added.

$ echo foo |base58 -c
J8kY46kF5y6

With the -v option, the checksum is verified.

$ echo foo |base58   |base58 -v || echo wrong checksum
wrong checksum
$ echo foo |base58 -c|base58 -v && echo good checksum
good checksum

Decoding is done with the -d option.

$ base58 -d <<<J8kY46kF5y6
foo
M-MDjM-^E

As seen above, when writing to a terminal, base58 will escape non-printable characters.

Input can be coming from a file when giving the filename (or say a process substitution) as positional parameter :

$ base58 <(echo foo)
3csAed

A large file will take a very long time to process though, as this encoding is absolutely not optimized to deal with large data.

Bech32 is a string format used to encode segwit addresses, but by itself it is not a binary-to-text encoding, as it needs additional conventions for padding.

Therefore, the bech32 function in this library does not read binary data, but merely creates a Bech32 string from a human readable part and a non checked data part :

$ bech32 this-part-is-readable-by-a-human qpzry
this-part-is-readable-by-a-human1qpzrylhvwcq

The -m option creates a bech32m string :

$ bech32 -m this-part-is-readable-by-a-human qpzry
this-part-is-readable-by-a-human1qpzry2tuzaz

The -v option can be used to verify the checksum :

$ bech32 -v this-part-is-readable-by-a-human1qpzrylhvwcq && echo good checksum
good checksum

$ bech32 -m -v this-part-is-readable-by-a-human1qpzry2tuzaz && echo good checksum
good checksum

The function wif reads 32 bytes from stdin, interprets them as a secp256k1 exponent and displays the corresponding private key in Wallet Import Format.

$ openssl rand 32 |wif
L1zAdArjAUgbDKj8LYxs5NsFk5JB7dTKGLCNMNQXyzE4tWZBGqs9

With the -u option, the uncompressed version is returned.

With the -t option, the testnet version is returned.

With the -d option, the reverse operation is performed : reading a key in WIF from stdin and printing 32 bytes to non-terminal standard output. When writing to a terminal, the output is in a format used by openssl ec.

Generation and derivation of eXtended keys, as described in BIP-0032 and its successors BIP-0044, BIP-0049 and BIP-0084, are supported by three filters, namely bip32, bip49 and bip84, along with three respective aliases xkey, ykey and zkey. The aliases exist for the sole reason that they are arguably easier to type.

Unless the option -p, -s or -t is used, these functions read 78 bytes from stdin and interpret these as a serialized extended key. Then the extended key derived according to a derivation path provided as a positional parameter is computed and printed on stdout.

A base58check-encoded key can be passed as input if it is pasted in the terminal, but to pass it through a pipe, it must first be decoded with base58 -d:

$ myxprvkey=xprv9s21ZrQH143K31xYSDQpPDxsXRTUcvj2iNHm5NUtrGiGG5e2DtALGdso3pGz6ssrdK4PFmM8NSpSBHNqPqm55Qn3LqFtT2emdEXVYsCzC2U
$ base58 -d <<<"$myxprvkey" |xkey /0
xprv9vHkqa6EV4sPZHYqZznhT2NPtPCjKuDKGY38FBWLvgaDx45zo9WQRUT3dKYnjwih2yJD9mkrocEZXo1ex8G81dwSM1fwqWpWkeS3v86pgKt

To capture the base58check-encoded result, encoding must be performed explicitely with base58 -c.

$ myXkey="$(base58 -d <<<"$myxprvkey"| xkey /0 |base58 -c)"

When the -s option is used, stdin is used as a binary seed instead of an extended key. This option is thus required to generate a master key :

$ openssl rand 64 |tee myseed |xkey -s
xprv9s21ZrQHREDACTEDtahEqxcVoeTTAS5dMAqREDACTEDDZd7Av8eHm6cWFRLz5P5C6YporfPgTxC6rREDACTEDn5kJBuQY1v4ZVejoHFQxUg

Any key in the key tree can be generated from a seed, though:

$ xkey -s m/0h/0/0 < myseed

When the -t option is used, stdin is used as a binary seed and the generated key will be a testnet key.

$ xkey -t < myseed
tprv8ZgxMBicQKsPen8dPzk2REDACTEDiRWqeNcdvrrxLsJ7UZCB3wH5tQsUbCBEPDREDACTEDfTh3skpif3GFENREDACTEDgemFAhG914qE5EC

N is the derivation operator used to get the so-called neutered key, a.k.a the public extended key.

$ base58 -d <<<"$myxprvkey" |xkey /N
xpub661MyMwAqRbcFW31YEwpkMuc5THy2PSt5bDMsktWQcFF8syAmRUapSCGu8ED9W6oDMSgv6Zz8idoc4a6mr8BDzTJY47LJhkJ8UB7WEGuduB

ykey and zkey differ from xkey mostly by their serialization format, as described in bip-0049 and bip-0084.

$ openssl rand 64 > myseed
$ ykey -s < myseed
yprvABrGsX5C9jantX14t9AjGYHoPw5LV3wdRD9JH3UxsEkMsxv3BcdzSFnqNidrmQ82nnLCmu3w6PWMZjPTmLKSAdBFBnXhqoE3VgBQLN6xJzg
$ zkey -s < myseed
zprvAWgYBBk7JR8GjieqUJjUQTqxVwy22Z7ZMPTUXJf2tsHG5Wa83ez3TQFqWWNCTVfyEc3tk7PxY2KTytxCMvW4p7obDWvymgbk2AmoQq1qL8Q

You can feed any file to these functions, and such file doesn't have to be 64 bytes long. It should, however, contain at least that much entropy.

If the derivation path begins with m or M, and unless the option -p, -s or -t is used, additional checks are performed to ensure that the input is a master private key or a master public key respectively.

When reading a binary seed, under the hood the seed feeds the following openssl command :

openssl dgst -sha512 -hmac "Bitcoin seed" -binary

The output of this command is then split in two to produce a chain code and a private exponent, as described in bip-0032.

It is possible to store the keys of a hierarchical deterministic wallet in biological memory using mnemonics. There are at least two ways to do so : the first one is to follow the dedicated BIP, and the other is to use known memory techniques.

A seed can be produced from a mnemonic, a.k.a a secret phrase, as described in BIP-0039.

To create a mnemonic, a function create-mnemonic takes as argument an amount of entropy in bits either 128, 160, 192, 224 or 256. Default is 160.

$ create-mnemonic 128
invest hedgehog slogan unfold liar thunder cream leaf kiss combine minor document

The function will attempt to read the locale settings to figure out which language to use. If it fails, or if the local language is not supported, it will use English.

Alternatively, the function can take as argument some noise in hexadecimal (the corresponding number of bits must be a multiple of 32).

$ create-mnemonic "$(openssl rand -hex 20)"
poem season process confirm meadow hidden will direct seed void height shadow live visual sauce

To create a seed from a mnemonic, there is a function mnemonic-to-seed.

$ mnemonic=($(create-mnemonic))
$ mnemonic-to-seed "${mnemonic[@]}"

This function expects several words as arguments, not a long string of space-separated words, so mind the parameter expansion (@ or * in arrays for instance).

mnemonic-to-seed output is in binary, but when writing to a terminal, it will escape non-printable charaters. Otherwise, output is pure binary so it can be fed to a bip-0032-style function directly :

$ mnemonic-to-seed "${mnemonic[@]}" |xkey -s /N

With the -p option, mnemonic-to-seed will prompt a passphrase. With the -P option, it will prompt it twice and will not echo the input.

The passphrase can also be given with the BIP39_PASSPHRASE environment variable :

$ BIP39_PASSPHRASE=sesame mnemonic-to-seed "${mnemonic[@]}" |xkey -s /N

An alternative to bip-39 is to use memory techniques.

Once you've become familiar with these techniques, you can memorize a seed in several ways, you just have to make sure you also remember your choice of encoding. For instance, if you've memorized a long number in decimal, you could either use its representation in ASCII or a byte stream generated from it with dc's P command.

A function called bitcoinAddress takes a bitcoin key, either vanilla or extended, and displays the corresponding bitcoin address. Unlike functions described above, bitcoinAddress currently takes input as positional parameters, and not from stdin. This might change in future versions, as it is probably not a good idea to write bitcoin private keys in plain text on the command line.

For a vanilla private key in WIF, the P2PKH invoice address is produced :

$ bitcoinAddress KwDiBf89QgGbjEhKnhXJuH7LrciVrZi3qYjgd9M7rFU73sVHnoWn
1BgGZ9tcN4rmREDACTEDprQz87SZ26SAMH

Right now, for extended keys, only neutered keys are processed. So if you want the bitcoin address of an extended private key, you must neuter it first.

$ openssl rand 64 > seed
$ bitcoinAddress "$(xkey -s /N < seed |base58 -c)"
18kuHbLe1BheREDACTEDgzHtnKh1Fm3LCQ

xpub, ypub and zpub keys produce addresses of different formats, as specified in their respective BIPs :

$ bitcoinAddress "$(ykey -s /N < seed |base58 -c)"
3JASVbGLpb4W9oREDACTEDB6dSWRGQ9gJm
$ bitcoinAddress "$(zkey -s /N < seed |base58 -c)"
bc1q4r9k3p9t8cwhedREDACTED5v775f55at9jcqqe

The bip85 function implements BIP-0085, a method of normalizing generation and format of entropy from a given master extended private key.

The function reads a master extended private key from standard input, as xkey would. When reading from a terminal, the function will expect the base58-checked encoding. Otherwise it will expect the binary version.

For illustration purpose, we'll use the same key used for the test vectors in BIP-0085.

$ root=xprv9s21ZrQH143K2LBWUUQRFXhucrQqBpKdRRxNVq2zBqsx8HVqFk2uYo8kmbaLLHRdqtQpUm98uKfu3vca1LqdGhUtyoFnCNkfmXRyPXLjbKb

The general syntax is bip85 APP [PARAMETERS...], where APP is a word designating the desired application, as described below.

To create a bip-39 mnemonic, use mnemo as APP. The optional parameters are the number of words (default is 12) and the index (default is zero).

$ base58 -d <<<"$root" | bip85 mnemo
girl mad pet galaxy egg matter matrix prison refuse sense ordinary nose

To create a hd-seed, use wif as APP. The WIF will only be printed on a terminal.

$ base58 -d <<<"$root" | bip85 wif
Kzyv4uF39d4Jrw2W7UryTHwZr1zQVNk4dAFyqE6BuMrMh1Za7uhp

You can specify an optional index :

$ base58 -d <<<"$root" | bip85 wif 1
L45nghBsnmqaGj9VyREDACTEDJNi6K4LUFP4REDACTEDLEyXUkYP

To derive an other extended master key, use xprv as APP.

$ base58 -d <<<"$root" | bip85 xprv
xprv9s21ZrQH143K2srSbCSg4m4kLvPMzcWydgmKEnMmoZUurYuBuYG46c6P71UGXMzmriLzCCBvKQWBUv3vPB3m1SATMhp3uEjXHJ42jFg7myX

You can specify an optional index :

$ base58 -d <<<"$root" | bip85 xprv 1
xprv9s21ZrQH143K38mDZkjREDACTEDWyjWiejciPyREDACTED9Vg3WCWnhkPW3rKsPT6u3MREDACTEDxjBjFES1xCzEtxTSAfQTapE7CXcbQ4b

• bash version 4 or above;
• GNU's Coreutils;
• dc, the Unix desktop calculator;
• openssl, the OpenSSL command line tool.
• Perl and Test::Harness for TAP

• BIP 0032
• BIP 0039
• BIP 0085
• BIP 0173
• BIP 0350
• TAP support
• offline transactions
• copy the Bitcoin eXplorer interface as much as possible
• put everything in a single file
• use Jacobian coordinates
• use a better exponentiation method, for instance using precomputations
• always output public keys in ASCII, and private keys in binary
• get bitcoinAddress to generate various addresses from extended keys, picking an appropriate derivation path.
• ensure idempotence
• get rid of coproc

• bx, a much more complete command-line utility written in C .
• learnmeabitcoin.com, a very nice website explaining how bitcoin works.

To discuss this project without necessarily opening an issue, feel free to use the discussions tab.

Copyright (C) 2013 Lucien Grondin ([email protected])

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.