Regtest

Running the bdk-cli tool in regtest requires having a local Electrum server set-up. There are two main implementations, electrs (opens new window) in Rust and ElectrumX (opens new window) in Python. Since the Rust toolchain is already required to use BDK, this page will focus mostly on the former.

Electrs can be installed by running:

cargo install --git https://github.com/romanz/electrs --bin electrs

Just like before, this command will probably take a while to finish.

Once it's done, assuming you have a regtest bitcoind running in background, you can launch a new terminal and run the following command to actually start electrs:

electrs -vv --timestamp --db-dir /tmp/electrs-db --electrum-rpc-addr="127.0.0.1:50001" --network=regtest --cookie-file=$HOME/.bitcoin/regtest/.cookie

on macOS you should change the cookie-file to $HOME/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/regtest/.cookie.

This will start the Electrum server on port 50001. You can then add the -n regtest -s 127.0.0.1:50001 to the bdk-cli commands to switch to the local regtest.

Troubleshooting

Stuck with "wait until bitcoind is synced (i.e. initialblockdownload = false)"

Just generate a few blocks with bitcoin-cli generatetoaddress 1 <address>

Bonus: Docker

If you have already installed Docker on your machine, you can also use 🍣 Nigiri CLI (opens new window) to spin-up a complete development environment in regtest that includes a bitcoin node, an electrs explorer and the esplora (opens new window) web-app to visualize blocks and transactions in the browser.

Install 🍣 Nigiri

$ curl https://getnigiri.vulpem.com | bash

Start Docker daemon and run Nigiri box

$ nigiri start

This will start electrum RPC interface on port 51401, the REST interface on 3000 and the esplora UI on 5000 (You can visit with the browser and look for blocks, addresses and transactions)

You can then add the -n regtest -s 127.0.0.1:51401 to the bdk-cli commands to switch to the local regtest.