Visualize the bitcoin blockchain from your local node

Overview

Project Overview

A new feature in Bitcoin Core 0.20 allows users to dump the state of the blockchain (the UTXO set) using the command dumptxoutset. I've written a python script utxo-live.py that takes the ouput of dumptxoutset and generates a heatmap of the blockchain via the UTXO set. Thus all of the active bitcoin in the blockchain is visualized in a single image from your own node.


Logo

Figure description: The heatmap is a two dimensional histogram showing the output date (x-axis), BTC amount (y-axis), and number of unspent outputs (color map) in each histogram bin. The BTC amounts on the y-axis are log scale and there are 100 bins in each log decade (e.g. 100 bins between 1 and 10 BTC). The bin size of output dates is one day. Zooming in to the image usually reveals more detail. A daily updating version of this image is running at utxo.live.

Privacy & Security

With the new dumptxouset command, the python script no longer requires an RPC password to access Core's databases. The script simply reads the dump file without interacting with Core at all. No private keys, passwords, xpubs, or wallet addresses are exchanged between Core and the python script.

Requirements

  • Bitcoin Core version 0.20 or higher
  • Python3 (comes standard on all operating systems)

Instructions for experienced users

  • Create a folder called utxo-live in a familiar location
  • Dump the utxo set bitcoin-cli dumptxoutset /xxxxxx.dat where xxxxxxx is the current block height (10-20 min) (Note: bitcoin-cli doesn't ship with Core on Mac OS, use Window->Console instead)
  • Install two python dependencies python3 -m pip install numpy matplotlib
  • Download utxo-live.py to your utxo-live folder and run it python3 utxo-live.py (20 min)

Step by step instructions

  1. Make sure Bitcoin Core (version 0.20 or higher) is running and synchronized.

  2. Create a new folder called utxo-live in a familiar location on your machine (e.g. in your Documents folder).

  3. Open a terminal window and display the current folder path. Do this by:

  • Windows: open a terminal (Start -> Command Prompt) and type:
echo %cd%
  • Mac/Linux: open a terminal (Mac: Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal) and type:
pwd
  1. Navigate to the utxo-live folder using the change directory cd command. For example if you're currently in Users/Steve/ (or on Windows C:\Users\Steve\) and you've created the folder Steve/Documents/bitcoin-tools/utxo-live/ then type:
cd Document/bitcoin-tools/utxo-live/

Note: Windows sometimes requires forward slashes / instead of back slashes \.

  1. Again display the current folder (Step 3) and copy to your clipboard the full path to the utxo-live folder. We will be pasting this path into Bitcoin Core soon.

  2. Leave the terminal window momentarily, and open the Bitcoin Core console window. (Alternatively for bitcoin-cli users, open another terminal window and type the console commands in the next steps as bitcoin-cli commands.)

Open Console Pic

  1. Get the current block count by typing in the console window:
getblockcount

and hitting enter. The output will look like:

  1. Dump the current utxo set by typing in the console window:
  dumptxoutset <PATH to utxo-live>/<xxxxxx.dat>

where is copy-pasted from Step 5, and is the block count. For example if the block count is 678505, the command (for my path) is:

  dumptxoutset /Users/Steve/Documents/bitcoin-tools/utxo-live/678505.dat

If there are no error messages after hitting enter, then it's working. It will take 10-20 minutes. Look in your utxo-live folder and you should see the file being created as xxxxxx.dat.incomplete.

  1. While the utxo file is dumping, download utxo-live.py and install two python dependencies. To do this:
  • Right click on utxo-live.py, choose "Save Link As" and select the utxo-live folder.

  • In the terminal window (not the Bitcoin console), type the following command to install two python dependencies:

  python3 -m pip install numpy matplotlib

Note: you might already have these installed, but running the command won't hurt anything.

  1. If 10-20 minutes have passed, check that the utxo dump is completed. Do this in two ways:
  • Check that the file no longer has .incomplete after xxxxxx.dat
  • Check that the Bitcoin Core console displays the results of the dump as something like:

  1. If the dump file is finished and Step 9 is completed (utxo-live.py is downloaded and python dependencies were installed), then run utxo-live.py by typing in the terminal:
  python3 utxo-live.py
  1. The program will take 20-30 minutes to complete and it will update you on the progress. If there are multiple xxxxxxx.dat files in the folder, it will ask you which one you'd like to process. When finished the image is stored in the folder as utxo_heatmap_xxxxxx.png.

Acknowledgements

I'm indebted to three main projects for the code, understanding, and inspiration for this project. The python functions that parse and decode the utxo dump file were adapted from Bitcoin_Tools. I learned how Core serializes utxos from Bitcoin-UTXO-Dump . An inspiring project that visualizes changes in the UTXO set as a movie is BitcoinUtxoVisualizer .

An open-source tool for visual and modular block programing in python

PyFlow PyFlow is an open-source tool for modular visual programing in python ! Although for now the tool is in Beta and features are coming in bit by

1.1k Jan 06, 2023
Splore - a simple graphical interface for scrolling through and exploring data sets of molecules

Scroll through and exPLORE molecule sets The splore framework aims to offer a si

3 Jun 18, 2022
Certificate generating and sending system written in Python.

Certificate Generator & Sender How to use git clone https://github.com/saadhaxxan/Certificate-Generator-Sender.git cd Certificate-Generator-Sender Add

Saad Hassan 11 Dec 01, 2022
This is a small repository for me to implement my simply Data Visualisation skills through Python.

Data Visualisations This is a small repository for me to implement my simply Data Visualisation skills through Python. Steam Population Chart from 10/

9 Dec 31, 2021
Design your own matplotlib stylefile interactively

Tired of playing with font sizes and other matplotlib parameters every time you start a new project or write a new plotting function? Want all you plots have the same style? Use matplotlib configurat

yobi byte 207 Dec 08, 2022
Fast data visualization and GUI tools for scientific / engineering applications

PyQtGraph A pure-Python graphics library for PyQt5/PyQt6/PySide2/PySide6 Copyright 2020 Luke Campagnola, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill h

pyqtgraph 3.1k Jan 08, 2023
🐍PyNode Next allows you to easily create beautiful graph visualisations and animations

PyNode Next A complete rewrite of PyNode for the modern era. Up to five times faster than the original PyNode. PyNode Next allows you to easily create

ehne 3 Feb 12, 2022
PanGraphViewer -- show panenome graph in an easy way

PanGraphViewer -- show panenome graph in an easy way Table of Contents Versions and dependences Desktop-based panGraphViewer Library installation for

16 Dec 17, 2022
Parallel t-SNE implementation with Python and Torch wrappers.

Multicore t-SNE This is a multicore modification of Barnes-Hut t-SNE by L. Van der Maaten with python and Torch CFFI-based wrappers. This code also wo

Dmitry Ulyanov 1.7k Jan 09, 2023
ipyvizzu - Jupyter notebook integration of Vizzu

ipyvizzu - Jupyter notebook integration of Vizzu. Tutorial · Examples · Repository About The Project ipyvizzu is the Jupyter Notebook integration of V

Vizzu 729 Jan 08, 2023
Simple plotting for Python. Python wrapper for D3xter - render charts in the browser with simple Python syntax.

PyDexter Simple plotting for Python. Python wrapper for D3xter - render charts in the browser with simple Python syntax. Setup $ pip install PyDexter

D3xter 31 Mar 06, 2021
Create 3d loss surface visualizations, with optimizer path. Issues welcome!

MLVTK A loss surface visualization tool Simple feed-forward network trained on chess data, using elu activation and Adam optimizer Simple feed-forward

7 Dec 21, 2022
Bioinformatics tool for exploring RNA-Protein interactions

Explore RNA-Protein interactions. RNPFind is a bioinformatics tool. It takes an RNA transcript as input and gives a list of RNA binding protein (RBP)

Nahin Khan 3 Jan 27, 2022
GitHub English Top Charts

Help you discover excellent English projects and get rid of the interference of other spoken language.

kon9chunkit 529 Jan 02, 2023
D-Analyst : High Performance Visualization Tool

D-Analyst : High Performance Visualization Tool D-Analyst is a high performance data visualization built with python and based on OpenGL. It allows to

4 Apr 14, 2022
A guide for using Bootstrap 5 classes in Dash Bootstrap Components V1

dash-bootstrap-cheatsheet This handy interactive cheatsheet makes it easy to use the Bootstrap 5 classes with your Dash app made with the latest versi

10 Dec 22, 2022
Param: Make your Python code clearer and more reliable by declaring Parameters

Param Param is a library providing Parameters: Python attributes extended to have features such as type and range checking, dynamically generated valu

HoloViz 304 Jan 07, 2023
Active Transport Analytics Model (ATAM) is a new strategic transport modelling and data visualization framework for Active Transport as well as emerging micro-mobility modes

{ATAM} Active Transport Analytics Model Active Transport Analytics Model (“ATAM”) is a new strategic transport modelling and data visualization framew

Peter Stephan 0 Jan 12, 2022
A dashboard built using Plotly-Dash for interactive visualization of Dex-connected individuals across the country.

Dashboard For The DexConnect Platform of Dexterity Global Working prototype submission for internship at Dexterity Global Group. Dashboard for real ti

Yashasvi Misra 2 Jun 15, 2021
An XLSX spreadsheet renderer for Django REST Framework.

drf-renderer-xlsx provides an XLSX renderer for Django REST Framework. It uses OpenPyXL to create the spreadsheet and returns the data.

The Wharton School 166 Dec 01, 2022