BITCOIN-CLI(1)

📦
version 31.1 · 7 versions
, in epel 10, fedora 43, fedora 44

✨ NAME ✨

okay bestie, gather round, this is the manual page for bitcoin-cli, and it's the User Commands girlie in your man section 1. literally the whole thing, no skips 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

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

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so this is the Bitcoin Core RPC client, version v31.1.0, no cap.

The bitcoin-cli utility is your little command line bestie for talking to a Bitcoin Core RPC server. it's giving ✨direct communication✨.

you can use it to:

  • query network information
  • manage wallets
  • create or broadcast transactions
  • control the Bitcoin Core server

Run the help command to see all the commands, and run help <command> to get the help for that specific command, periodt. And the -named option lets you hand over parameters in key=value format, which means you never have to pass a bunch of unused positional parameters again — it's honestly iconic of her.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -color=<when> — the color setting for CLI output (default: auto). Valid values: always, auto (which adds color codes when standard output is connected to a terminal and the OS is not WIN32), and never. Heads up: this only applies to the output of -getinfo.
  • -conf=<file> — specify the configuration file. Relative paths get prefixed by the datadir location. (default: bitcoin.conf)
  • -datadir=<dir> — specify the data directory.
  • -help — print this help message and exit (also works as -h or -?).
  • -named — pass named instead of positional arguments (default: false).
  • -rpcclienttimeout=<n> — timeout in seconds during HTTP requests, or 0 for no timeout at all. (default: 900)
  • -rpcconnect=<ip> — send commands to the node running on <ip> (default: 127.0.0.1).
  • -rpccookiefile=<loc> — location of the auth cookie. Relative paths get 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 the 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 a non-default wallet on the RPC server (this needs to exactly match the corresponding -wallet option you 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 you combine it with -stdinrpcpass, the first line from standard input is used for the RPC password.
  • -stdinrpcpass — read the 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 the 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:

literally just vibes here, no extra flags listed, moving on bestie 🫶

🌈 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.
⚠️ bestie, listen: 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, jsyk.
  • -generate — generate blocks, equivalent to the RPC getnewaddress followed by the RPC generatetoaddress. Optional positional integer arguments are the number of blocks to generate (default: 1) and maximum iterations to try (default: 1000000), equivalent to the 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). 💀 it's giving slightly out of sync, but that's just how she is.
  • -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 (C) 2009-2026 The Bitcoin Core developers

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/license/MIT>

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

and that's the whole page bestie, we ate and left no crumbs 💅✨ this was bitcoin-cli v31.1.0, dated July 2026, straight out of the User Commands section of your manual, no cap 🫶🎀

📦 where this page comes from