• v5.0
• v4.3
• v0.4.2
• v0.4.1
• v0.4
• v0.3
• v0.2
• v0.1—initial release

Counterparty is a protocol for the creation and use of decentralised financial instruments such as asset exchanges, contracts for difference and dividend payments. It uses Bitcoin as a transport layer. The contents of this repository, counterpartyd, constitute the reference implementation of the protocol.

The Counterparty protocol specification may be found at https://github.com/PhantomPhreak/Counterparty.

• Python 3
• Python 3 packages: apsw, requests, appdirs, prettytable, python-dateutil, json-rpc, cherrypy, pycoin, pyzmq(v2.2+) (see this link for exact working versions)
• Bitcoind

NOTE: This section covers manual installation of counterpartyd. If you want more of an automated approach to counterpartyd installation for Windows and Linux, see this link.

In order for counterpartyd to function, it must be able to communicate with a running instance of Bitcoind or Bitcoin-Qt, which handles many Bitcoin‐specific matters on its behalf, including all wallet and private key management. For such interoperability, Bitcoind must be run with the following options: -txindex=1 -server=1. This may require the setting of a JSON‐RPC password, which may be saved in Bitcoind’s configuration file.

counterpartyd needs to know at least the JSON‐RPC password of the Bitcoind with which it is supposed to communicate. The simplest way to set this is to include it in all command‐line invocations of counterpartyd, such as ./counterpartyd.py --rpc-password=PASSWORD ACTION. To make this and other options persistent across counterpartyd sessions, one may store the desired settings in a configuration file specific to counterpartyd.

Note that the syntaxes for the countpartyd and the Bitcoind configuraion files are not the same. A Bitcoind configuration file looks like this:

rpcuser=bitcoinrpc
rpcpassword=PASSWORD
testnet=1
txindex=1
server=1

However, a counterpartyd configuration file looks like this:

[Default]
bitcoind-rpc-password=PASSWORD

Note the change in hyphenation between ‘rpcpassword’ and ‘rpc-password’.

If and only if counterpartyd is to be run on the Bitcoin testnet, with the --testnet CLI option, Bitcoind must be set to do the same (-testnet=1). counterpartyd may run with the --testcoin option on any blockchain, however.

The test suite is invoked with py.test.

The command‐line syntax of counterpartyd is generally that of ./counterpartyd.py {OPTIONS} ACTION {ACTION-OPTIONS}. There is a one action per message type, which action produces and broadcasts such a message; the message parameters are specified following the name of the message type. There are also actions which do not correspond to message types, but rather exist to provide information about the state of the Counterparty network, e.g. current balances or open orders.

For a summary of the command‐line arguments and options, see ./counterpartyd.py --help.

• Quantities of divisible assets are written to eight decimal places.
• Quantities of indivisible assets are written as integers.
• All other quantities, i.e. prices, odds, leverages, feed values and target values, fee multipliers, are specified to four decimal places.
• counterpartyd identifies an Order, Bet, Order Match or Bet Match by an ‘Order ID’, ‘Bet ID’, ‘Order Match ID’, or ‘Bet Match ID’, respectively. Match IDs are concatenations of the hashes of the two transactions which compose the corresponding Match, in the order of their appearances in the blockchain.

The following examples are abridged for parsimony.

• Server

  The server command should always be running in the background. All other commands will fail if the index of the last block in the database is less than that of the last block seen by Bitcoind.

• Burn

  burn --source=mtQheFaSfWELRB2MyMBaiWjdDm6ux9Ezns --quantity=.5

• Send divisible or indivisible assets

   send --source=mtQheFaSfWELRB2MyMBaiWjdDm6ux9Ezns --quantity=3 --asset=BBBC
   --to=n3BrDB6zDiEPWEE6wLxywFb4Yp9ZY5fHM7
  

• Buy BTC for XCP

   order --source=mtQheFaSfWELRB2MyMBaiWjdDm6ux9Ezns --get-quantity=10 --get-asset=BTC
   --give-quantity=20 --give-asset=XCP --expiration=10 --fee_required=.001
  

• Buy BBBC for BTC

   order --source=mtQheFaSfWELRB2MyMBaiWjdDm6ux9Ezns --get-quantity=10 --get-asset=BBBC
   --give-quantity=20 --give-asset=BTC --expiration=10 --fee_provided.001
  

• Buy XCP for BBBC

   order --source=mtQheFaSfWELRB2MyMBaiWjdDm6ux9Ezns --get-quantity=10 --get-asset=XCP
   --give-quantity=20 --give-asset=BBBC --expiration=10
  

• BTCPay

   btcpay --order-match-id=092f15d36786136c4d868c33356ec3c9b5a0c77de54ed0e96a8dbdd8af160c23
  

• Issue

  issuance --source=mtQheFaSfWELRB2MyMBaiWjdDm6ux9Ezns --quantity=100 --asset='BBBC'

  issuance --source=mtQheFaSfWELRB2MyMBaiWjdDm6ux9Ezns --quantity=100 --asset='BBBQ' --divisible

• Broadcast

   broadcast --source=mtQheFaSfWELRB2MyMBaiWjdDm6ux9Ezns --text="Bitcoin price feed" --value=825.22
   --fee-multiplier=0.001
  

  Note: for some users counterpartyd has trouble parsing spaces in the --text argument. One workaround is to add an additional set of quotes. For example, --text='"Bitcoin price feed"'

• Bet

  Equal/Not Equal Bet:

  Example: Bet on Super Bowl Feed. Denver vs. Seattle. Feed value of 1 means Seattle Wins. Feed value of 2 means Denver Wins. This command places a 1 XCP bet on the Super Bowl Feed for Seattle to win, paying out 2 to 1. The bet will expire in 100 blocks and the settlement value of the bet is based on the first feed update after the deadline timestamp of February 3, 2014 1:39 PM US Eastern Standard Time (UTC-0500)

   bet --source=mtQheFaSfWELRB2MyMBaiWjdDm6ux9Ezns --feed-address=n3BrDB6zDiEPWEE6wLxywFb4Yp9ZY5fH --bet-type=Equal
   --deadline=2014-02-03T13:39:00-0500 --wager=1 --counterwager=2 --target-value=1 --leverage=5040 --expiration=100
  

  Contract for Difference:

  Example: Bet on Bitcoin Price Feed. This command places a bearish (short) 1 XCP wager on the price of BTC/USD with 2X leverage. The bet will expire in 100 blocks and the settlement value of the bet is based on the first feed update after the deadline timestamp of February 3, 2014 1:39 PM US Eastern Standard Time (UTC-0500)

   bet --source=mtQheFaSfWELRB2MyMBaiWjdDm6ux9Ezns --feed-address=n3BrDB6zDiEPWEE6wLxywFb4Yp9ZY5fH --bet-type=BearCFD --deadline=2014-02-03T13:39:00-0500 --wager=1 --counterwager=1 --leverage=10080 --expiration=100
  

• Cancel

   cancel --offer-hash=092f15d36786136c4d868c33356ec3c9b5a0c77de54ed0e96a8dbdd8af160c23
  

• Dividend

   dividend --source=mtQheFaSfWELRB2MyMBaiWjdDm6ux9Ezns --quantity-per-share=1 --asset=MULTIPOOLSTOCK
  

• Market

  The market action prints out tables of open orders, open bets, feeds, and order matches currently awaiting Bitcoin payments from one of your addresses.

  It is capable of filtering orders by assets to be bought and sold.

  Example:

  To filter the market to only show offers to sell (give) BTC:

   market --give-asset=BTC
  

  To filter the market to only show offers to buy (get) BTC:

   market --get-asset=BTC
  

  To filter the market to only show offers to sell BTC for XCP:

   market --give-asset=BTC --get-asset=XCP
  

• Asset

  The asset action displays the basic properties of a given asset.

• Address

  The address action displays the details of of all transactions involving the Counterparty address which is its argument.