arb
is a command-line wallet, index, and explorer interface that
implements the arb
protocol, which enables arbitrary protocols on top
of Bitcoin, such as Bitcoin NFTs/Ordinals & Bitcoin Identities/Usernames.
It is experimental software, should be considered a work-in-progress, and has no warranty. All features may not be fully implemented currently. See issues and LICENSE for more details.
Join the Gitter room to
chat about the arb
ecosystem.
-
Arbitrary Protocols tyjvazum#1
- Read Arbitrary Protocol Inscriptions
- Write Arbitrary Protocol Inscriptions
-
Content Compression tyjvazum#2
-
Data Deduplication tyjvazum#3
-
Hash-addressed Content tyjvazum#4
-
Inscription Constraints tyjvazum#5
-
Inscription Metadata (JSON) tyjvazum#6
-
Multipart Inscriptions tyjvazum#7
-
Non-tracked / Non-transferable Inscriptions tyjvazum#8
-
Off-chain Content (BitTorrent) tyjvazum#9
-
📁
bfs
: Bitcoin File System, enabling storage and retrieval of public files using a filesystem paradigm. -
🪪
bid
: Bitcoin Identifiers/Usernames, enabling unique, human-meaningful name registration natively on Bitcoin. -
✨
bnw
: Bitcoin NFT Walls, enabling abid
to showcase a curated collection of NFTs that it owns. -
💎
ord
: Bitcoin NFTs/Ordinals, enabling NFTs natively on Bitcoin by imbuing satoshis with numismatic value, allowing them to be collected and traded as curios. -
◉
arb
supports arbitrary protocols on top of Bitcoin using inscriptions, so additional protocols can be defined using a JSON specification file, which are loaded to run the arbitrary protocol.
- Is associated with a specific
bid
Identifier/Username.
-
Characters can be alphanumeric with underscores, lowercase a through z, 0 through 9, and _ in any combination.
-
Length can be 1 through 16 characters, with 6 characters and shorter reserved for a future update, so 7 to 16 characters to start with.
-
Usernames must be renewed periodically, likely every 52,500 blocks, which is about 1 year, but perhaps a shorter period initially to discourage speculation and encourage engagement.
-
A "sunrise period" where a list of the top ten thousand domains are reserved, with the matching username claimable by publishing some specific data at a well-known location on the domain prior to the end of the sunrise period, which would be some specified block height.
-
Is associated with a specific
bid
Identifier/Username. -
Is addressable at
USERNAME/WALL
whereUSERNAME
is a validbid
inscription andWALL
is the name for awal
inscription that thebid
inscription is associated with. -
Has a text description that can be whatever the owner chooses.
-
Version 0 (ordv0): As defined in https://github.com/casey/ord.
-
Version 1 (ordv1): Extended with new features, implemented through a backward-compatible, soft-fork mechanism termed Envelope Expansion.
- Content Compression
- Inscription Metadata (JSON)
- Off-chain Content (BitTorrent)
- Optional Title, Subtitle, Description, License, and Comment Fields
- Upgradable Version Mechanism
arb
relies on Bitcoin Core for key management and transaction signing.
This has a number of implications that you must understand in order to use
arb
wallet commands safely:
-
Bitcoin Core is not aware of inscriptions and does not perform sat control. Using
bitcoin-cli
commands and RPC calls witharb
wallets may lead to loss of inscriptions. -
arb wallet
commands automatically load thearb
wallet given by the--wallet
option, which defaults to 'arb'. Keep in mind that after running anarb wallet
command, anarb
wallet may be loaded. -
Because
arb
has access to your Bitcoin Core wallets,arb
should not be used with wallets that contain a material amount of funds. Keep ordinal and cardinal wallets segregated.
arb
is written in Rust and can be built from
source. Pre-built binaries are available on the
releases page.
You can install the latest pre-built binary from the command line with:
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -fsLS https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tyjvazum/arb/master/install.sh | bash -s
Once arb
is installed, you should be able to run arb --version
on the
command line.
On Debian and Ubuntu, arb
requires libssl-dev
when building from source:
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev
You'll also need Rust:
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
To build arb
from source:
git clone https://github.com/tyjvazum/arb.git
cd arb
cargo build --release
The default location for the arb
binary once built is ./target/release/arb
.
arb
requires rustc
version 1.67.0 or later. Run rustc --version
to ensure you have this
version. Run rustup update
to get the latest stable release.
arb
requires a synced bitcoind
node with -txindex
to build the index of
satoshi locations. arb
communicates with bitcoind
via RPC.
If bitcoind
is run locally by the same user, without additional
configuration, arb
should find it automatically by reading the .cookie
file
from bitcoind
's datadir, and connecting using the default RPC port.
If bitcoind
is not on mainnet, is not run by the same user, has a non-default
datadir, or a non-default port, you'll need to pass additional flags to arb
.
See arb --help
for details.
arb
uses env_logger. Set the
RUST_LOG
environment variable in order to turn on logging. For example, run
the server and show info
-level log messages and above:
$ RUST_LOG=info cargo run server
The arb
logo is ◉, which is the Unicode "Fisheye" character with Unicode
codepoint U+25C9
. Other representations include HTML (decimal) ◉
, HTML (hex) ◉
,
CSS-code \0025C9
, and JavaScript code \u25C9
. It should ideally be displayed using the font
color #F7931A
, but when that isn't possible (e.g., on social media posts), using the default
character in a black or white font color is acceptable as a fallback logo.
A PNG version of the logo (logo-1000x1000.png
), in font color #F7931A
, has also been included
for use where needed.
Release commit messages use the following template:
Release x.y.z
- Bump version: x.y.z → x.y.z
- Update changelog
- Update dependencies
- Update database schema version
This repository is based on the great work done in ord
: https://github.com/casey/ord