Bitcoin Core (bitcoind + bitcoin-cli) is the reference full node. Most serious backends either run it or carefully justify an alternative.
Complete Step 1 // Required reading in the study plan above, then continue here. You already stood up regtest in Foundations — this lesson deepens RPC habits.
Step 2 — Core idea: engine + authenticated controls
RPC is how you mine regtest blocks, fund addresses, inspect mempools, and import descriptors. Misconfigured RPC is also how servers get drained.
Analogy: bitcoind is the engine; RPC is the instrument cluster and ignition keyed to authorized operators. Never bolt the ignition onto the public internet.
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Useful call families:
- Blockchain:
getblock,getrawtransaction - Mempool:
getmempoolentry,estimatesmartfee - Wallet:
sendtoaddress,importdescriptors, PSBT RPCs
Done when: You can name three RPC families and one hard rule for exposure.
Step 3 — Try it: dedicated lab wallet (lab)
bitcoin-cli -regtest getblockchaininfo
bitcoin-cli -regtest createwallet "dev-lab" || bitcoin-cli -regtest loadwallet "dev-lab"
ADDR=$(bitcoin-cli -regtest getnewaddress)
bitcoin-cli -regtest generatetoaddress 101 "$ADDR"Confirm chain is regtest. Note cookie vs rpcuser auth from your setup.
Common mistakes
- Using one wallet for experiments and savings
- Forgetting
-regtestand talking to the wrong chain - Parsing RPC errors poorly and retrying unsafe sends
Done when: Lab evidence (chain info + wallet fund flow + auth sentence + source) is complete.
Next lesson
PSBT Workflows — multi-party signing without proprietary blobs.