counterblock provides additional services to Counterwallet beyond those offered in the API provided by counterparty-server. It features a full-fledged JSON RPC-based API, which services Counterwallet as well as any 3rd party services which wish to use it. counterblock has an extensible architecture, and developers may write custom plugins for it, which are loaded dynamically and allow them to extend counterblock with new parsing functionality, write gateways to other currencies or services, and much more.

With its set of core-plugins, counterblock provides a more high-level data processing, and an API that layers on top of counterparty-server’s API. counterblock generates and allows querying of data such as market and price information, trade operations, asset history, and more. It is used extensively by Counterwallet itself, and is appropriate for use by applications that require additional API-based functionality beyond the scope of what counterparty-server itself provides.

For a simple Docker-based install of the Counterparty software stack, see this guide.

(Linux only.) First, install mongodb and redis, and have an instance of bitcoind (addrindex branch) and counterparty-server running.

Then, download and install counterblock:

$ git clone https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/counterblock.git
$ cd counterblock
$ sudo pip3 install -r requirements.txt
$ sudo python3 setup.py install

Then, launch the daemon via the following command, with the passwords set as appropriate:

$ counterblock --backend-password=rpc --counterparty-password=rpc server

Further command line options are available via:

• $ counterblock --help