btcmonitor

A terminal dashboard (TUI) that monitors a local Bitcoin Core node using its JSON-RPC interface.

• Cross-platform using Python3 and Rich: tested on macOS, Ubuntu, Windows
• Uses cookie auth detection or bitcoin.conf as well as optional command-line parameters for rpc authentication
• Visualizes the following data about your bitcoin node in a dashboard:
  • Node health, blockchain height, peer information
  • Bitcoin price, block subsidy, # of blocks until next halving, time since last block
  • Mempool transaction count, memory size and fee histogram
  • Next block template as well as expected tx count, weight, and fee rate bands
  • Scrollable list of the 100 largest transactions in the mempool sorted by BTC output

Installation

Prerequisites

The following are needed for a successful installation:

• Python 3.9+
• PIP Python Package Mangager
• Python3 virtual environments support

If you don't have them already available, you can used these commands on Linux to install the prerequisites:

sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python3-venv

Installation

On MacOS and Ubuntu/Linux

On both MacOS and Ubunut using pip in Python3 requires the use of a venv virtual environment.

git clone https://github.com/afalk42/btcmonitor
python3 -m venv ~/.venv/
source ~/.venv/bin/activate
cd btcmonitor
pip install -e .

On Windows 11

It appears that using a Python venv is not required on Windows.

git clone https://github.com/afalk42/btcmonitor
cd btcmonitor
pip install -e .

Usage

btcmonitor --help

By default it auto-discovers the datadir and cookie file for the default network (mainnet). You can override:

btcmonitor --network mainnet --rpc-host 127.0.0.1 --rpc-port 8332 --rpc-user user --rpc-password pass

If --rpc-user/--rpc-password are omitted, cookie authentication will be attempted.

Requirements

• Python 3.9+ with pip and venv support
• A running bitcoind with JSON-RPC enabled (default on loopback)

Features

• Node summary: block height, headers, verification progress, peers, mempool bytes/txs, uptime
• System stats: CPU, memory, I/O
• Mempool visualization: fee buckets with ASCII bars
• Next block projection: approximate composition derived from getblocktemplate or mempool fees
• Bitcoin price, block subsidy, # of blocks until next halving, time since last block
• Scrollable list of the 100 largest transactions in the mempool sorted by BTC output

Quit

• Press q or Ctrl+C