bitcoin-cli - Man Page

manual page for bitcoin-cli v29.0.0

Examples (TL;DR)

Send a transaction to a given address: bitcoin-cli sendtoaddress "address" amount
Generate one or more blocks: bitcoin-cli generate num_blocks
Print high-level information about the wallet: bitcoin-cli getwalletinfo
List all outputs from previous transactions available to fund outgoing transactions: bitcoin-cli listunspent
Export the wallet information to a text file: bitcoin-cli dumpwallet "path/to/file"
Get blockchain information: bitcoin-cli getblockchaininfo
Get network information: bitcoin-cli getnetworkinfo
Stop the Bitcoin Core daemon: bitcoin-cli stop

Synopsis

bitcoin-cli [options] <command> [params] bitcoin-cli [options] -named <command> [name=value]... bitcoin-cli [options] help bitcoin-cli [options] help <command>

Description

Bitcoin Core RPC client version v29.0.0

The bitcoin-cli utility provides a command line interface to interact with a Bitcoin Core RPC server.

It can be used to query network information, manage wallets, create or broadcast transactions, and control the Bitcoin Core server.

Use the "help" command to list all commands. Use "help <command>" to show help for that command. The -named option allows you to specify parameters using the key=value format, eliminating the need to pass unused positional parameters.

Options

-color=<when>: Color setting for CLI output (default: auto). Valid values: always, auto (add color codes when standard output is connected to a terminal and OS is not WIN32), never. Only applies to the output of -getinfo.
-conf=<file>: Specify configuration file. Relative paths will be prefixed by datadir location. (default: bitcoin.conf)
-datadir=<dir>: Specify data directory
-help: Print this help message and exit (also -h or -?)
-named: Pass named instead of positional arguments (default: false)
-rpcclienttimeout=<n>: Timeout in seconds during HTTP requests, or 0 for no timeout. (default: 900)
-rpcconnect=<ip>: Send commands to node running on <ip> (default: 127.0.0.1)
-rpccookiefile=<loc>: Location of the auth cookie. Relative paths will be prefixed by a net-specific datadir location. (default: data dir)
-rpcpassword=<pw>: Password for JSON-RPC connections
-rpcport=<port>: Connect to JSON-RPC on <port> (default: 8332, testnet: 18332, testnet4: 48332, signet: 38332, regtest: 18443)
-rpcuser=<user>: Username for JSON-RPC connections
-rpcwait: Wait for RPC server to start
-rpcwaittimeout=<n>: Timeout in seconds to wait for the RPC server to start, or 0 for no timeout. (default: 0)
-rpcwallet=<walletname>: Send RPC for non-default wallet on RPC server (needs to exactly match corresponding -wallet option passed to bitcoind). This changes the RPC endpoint used, e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8332/wallet/<walletname>
-stdin: Read extra arguments from standard input, one per line until EOF/Ctrl-D (recommended for sensitive information such as passphrases). When combined with -stdinrpcpass, the first line from standard input is used for the RPC password.
-stdinrpcpass: Read RPC password from standard input as a single line. When combined with -stdin, the first line from standard input is used for the RPC password. When combined with -stdinwalletpassphrase, -stdinrpcpass consumes the first line, and -stdinwalletpassphrase consumes the second.
-stdinwalletpassphrase: Read wallet passphrase from standard input as a single line. When combined with -stdin, the first line from standard input is used for the wallet passphrase.
-version: Print version and exit

Debugging/Testing options:

Chain selection options:

-chain=<chain>: Use the chain <chain> (default: main). Allowed values: main, test, testnet4, signet, regtest
-signet: Use the signet chain. Equivalent to -chain=signet. Note that the network is defined by the -signetchallenge parameter
-signetchallenge: Blocks must satisfy the given script to be considered valid (only for signet networks; defaults to the global default signet test network challenge)
-signetseednode: Specify a seed node for the signet network, in the hostname[:port] format, e.g. sig.net:1234 (may be used multiple times to specify multiple seed nodes; defaults to the global default signet test network seed node(s))
-testnet: Use the testnet3 chain. Equivalent to -chain=test. Support for testnet3 is deprecated and will be removed in an upcoming release. Consider moving to testnet4 now by using -testnet4.
-testnet4: Use the testnet4 chain. Equivalent to -chain=testnet4.

CLI Commands:

-addrinfo: Get the number of addresses known to the node, per network and total, after filtering for quality and recency. The total number of addresses known to the node may be higher.
-generate: Generate blocks, equivalent to RPC getnewaddress followed by RPC generatetoaddress. Optional positional integer arguments are number of blocks to generate (default: 1) and maximum iterations to try (default: 1000000), equivalent to RPC generatetoaddress nblocks and maxtries arguments. Example: bitcoin-cli -generate 4 1000
-getinfo: Get general information from the remote server. Note that unlike server-side RPC calls, the output of -getinfo is the result of multiple non-atomic requests. Some entries in the output may represent results from different states (e.g. wallet balance may be as of a different block from the chain state reported)
-netinfo: Get network peer connection information from the remote server. An optional argument from 0 to 4 can be passed for different peers listings (default: 0). If a non-zero value is passed, an additional "outonly" (or "o") argument can be passed to see outbound peers only. Pass "help" (or "h") for detailed help documentation.

Copyright

Please contribute if you find Bitcoin Core useful. Visit <https://bitcoincore.org/> for further information about the software. The source code is available from <https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin>.

This is experimental software. Distributed under the MIT software license, see the accompanying file COPYING or <https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT>

Referenced By

bitcoind(1), bitcoin-qt(1), bitcoin-tx(1), bitcoin-util(1), bitcoin-wallet(1).

April 2025 bitcoin-cli v29.0.0