Skycoin

Skycoin is a next-generation cryptocurrency.

Skycoin was written from scratch and designed over four years to realize the ideal of Bitcoin and represents the apex of cryptocurrency design. Skycoin is not designed to add features to Bitcoin, but rather improves Bitcoin by increasing simplicity, security and stripping out everything non-essential.

Some people have hyped the Skycoin Project as leading into "Bitcoin 3.0". The coin itself is not "Bitcoin 3.0", but is rather "Bitcoin 1.0". Bitcoin is a prototype crypto-coin. Skycoin was designed to be what Bitcoin would look like if it were built from scratch, to remedy the rough edges in the Bitcoin design.

no duplicate coin-base outputs
enforced checks for hash collisions
simple deterministic wallets
no transaction malleability
no signature malleability
removal of the scripting language
CoinJoin and normal transactions are indistinguishable
elimination of edge-cases that prevent independent node implementations
<=10 second transaction times
elimination of the need for mining to achieve blockchain consensus

Skycoin Distribution

Skycoin is not mined. The maximum supply is 100,000,000 SKY.

Distribution occurs through the Skywire Network reward system. Approximately 816,000 Skycoin are distributed annually to eligible Skywire visors that meet uptime and network participation requirements.

For detailed reward eligibility requirements and current distribution rules, see:

Skywire visors do not process Skycoin transactions or sync the Skycoin blockchain. The reward system serves solely as the distribution mechanism for Skycoin.

Decentralization Through Fibercoins

Skycoin's approach to decentralization differs from proof-of-work or proof-of-stake consensus models. Rather than forcing all activity onto a single blockchain, Skycoin enables users to create custom fiber coins — independent blockchains with their own parameters, distribution models, and governance. The newcoin tool makes this process straightforward.

This multi-chain architecture allows:

Independent blockchains without competition for resources
Custom tokenomics and distribution models per fibercoin
Simpler, more predictable system requirements compared to shared-chain token models

Links

Changelog
Skycoin Distribution
Decentralization Through Fibercoins
Links
Installation
API Documentation
- REST API
- Skycoin command line interface
Integrating Skycoin with your application
Contributing a node to the network
Creating a new coin
Daemon CLI Options
URI Specification
Wire protocol user agent
Offline transaction signing
Deploy a public Skycoin API node with HTTPS
Development
Responsible Disclosure

Changelog

CHANGELOG.md

Installation

Skycoin supports go1.23+.

The skycoin binary includes multiple utilities as subcommands:

cli - Command line interface for wallet operations, blockchain queries, and transaction management
daemon - Full node daemon with wallet functionality and web interface
explorer - Blockchain explorer with web interface
newcoin - Tool for creating custom fiber coins (see documentation)
web - Thin client web wallet

Note on flag format: Skycoin now uses GNU/POSIX standard flags (-f or --flag) instead of Go-style flags (-flag).

Recommended Installation Methods

Choose one of the following methods (in order of recommendation):

1. Run directly with Go (recommended for testing)

$ go run github.com/skycoin/skycoin@develop

Or with a specific command:

$ go run github.com/skycoin/skycoin@develop daemon --help
$ go run github.com/skycoin/skycoin@develop cli addressGen

2. Install to GOPATH/bin

$ go install github.com/skycoin/skycoin@develop
$ skycoin --version
$ skycoin daemon --help

3. Download release binaries

Download the latest release for your platform from: https://github.com/skycoin/skycoin/releases

Extract and run:

$ ./skycoin --version

4. Compile from source

$ git clone https://github.com/skycoin/skycoin
$ cd skycoin
$ go build -o skycoin .
$ ./skycoin --version

Running Skycoin

Once installed, the skycoin binary provides access to all utilities:

# Run the daemon (default command)
$ skycoin daemon

# Show daemon options
$ skycoin daemon --help

# Run with custom options (note: GNU/POSIX flags)
$ skycoin daemon --launch-browser=false --data-dir=/custom/path

# Use CLI tools
$ skycoin cli addressGen
$ skycoin cli addressBalance <address>

# Start blockchain explorer
$ skycoin explorer

# Create a new fibercoin
$ skycoin newcoin config > mycoin.toml

Command Usage Examples

    ┌─┐┬┌─┬ ┬┌─┐┌─┐┬┌┐┌
    └─┐├┴┐└┬┘│  │ │││││
    └─┘┴ ┴ ┴ └─┘└─┘┴┘└┘

 Available Commands:    
  cli       skycoin command line interface    
  daemon    skycoin wallet  
  explorer  skycoin blockchain explorer  
  newcoin   newcoin is a helper tool for creating new fiber coins  
  web       skycoin thin client web wallet

Flags:
  -b, --bv        print runtime/debug.BuildInfo.Main.Version
  -d, --info      print runtime/debug.BuildInfo
  -v, --version   version for skycoin

Docker

DOCKER.md.

API Documentation

REST API

REST API.

Skycoin command line interface

The CLI is accessed via skycoin cli subcommand. See CLI command API for detailed documentation.

Example:

$ skycoin cli addressGen
$ skycoin cli addressBalance <address>
$ skycoin cli walletCreate -l "My Wallet"

Integrating Skycoin with your application

Skycoin Integration Documentation

Contributing a node to the network

Add your node's ip:port to the peers.txt file. This file will be periodically uploaded to https://downloads.skycoin.com/blockchain/peers.txt and used to seed client with peers.

Note: Do not add Skywire nodes to peers.txt. Only add Skycoin nodes with high uptime and a static IP address (such as a Skycoin node hosted on a VPS).

Creating a new coin

See the Fibercoin Creation Documentation

Daemon CLI Options

See the Skycoin Daemon CLI options

URI Specification

Skycoin URIs obey the same rules as specified in Bitcoin's BIP21. They use the same fields, except with the addition of an optional hours parameter, specifying the coin hours.

Example Skycoin URIs:

skycoin:2hYbwYudg34AjkJJCRVRcMeqSWHUixjkfwY
skycoin:2hYbwYudg34AjkJJCRVRcMeqSWHUixjkfwY?amount=123.456&hours=70
skycoin:2hYbwYudg34AjkJJCRVRcMeqSWHUixjkfwY?amount=123.456&hours=70&label=friend&message=Birthday%20Gift

Additonally, if no skycoin: prefix is present when parsing, the string may be treated as an address:

2hYbwYudg34AjkJJCRVRcMeqSWHUixjkfwY

However, do not use this URI in QR codes displayed to the user, because the address can't be disambiguated from other Skyfiber coins.

Wire protocol user agent

Wire protocol user agent description

Hardware Wallet

Hardware wallet commands are not included in the default skycoin binary. To use hardware wallets, compile separately:

$ cd cmd/hardware-wallet
$ go build -o skycoin-hw .
$ ./skycoin-hw --help

Hardware wallet functionality is provided by:

hardware-wallet-daemon - HTTP API daemon for hardware wallets
hardware-wallet-go - CLI interface for hardware wallets

Note: Hardware wallet support is currently limited to linux/amd64 platforms.

Offline transaction signing

Before doing the offline transaction signing, we need to have the unsigned transaction created. Using the skycoin cli command to create an unsigned transaction in hot wallet, and copy the hex encoded transaction to the computer where the cold wallet is installed. Then use the skycoin cli command to sign it offline.

Create an unsigned transaction

The skycoin cli tool replys on the APIs of the node or skycoin daemon, hence we have to start the node before running the tool.

Go to the project root and run:

$ skycoin daemon --launch-browser=false

Once the node is started, we could use the following command to create an unsigned transaction.

$ skycoin cli createRawTransactionV2 $WALLET_NAME $RECIPIENT_ADDRESS $AMOUNT --unsign

Note: Don't forget the --unsign flag, otherwise it would try to sign the transaction.

View Output

b700000000e6b869f570e2bfebff1b4d7e7c9e86885dbc34d6de988da6ff998e7acd7e6e14010000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000010000007531184ad0afeebbff2049b855e0921329cb1cb74d769ac57c057c9c8bd2b6810100000000ed5ea2ca4fe9b4560409b50c5bf7cb39b6c5ff6e50690f00000000000000000000000000

Copy and save the generated transaction string. We will sign it with a cold wallet offline in the next section.

Sign the transaction

The skycoin node needs to have the most recently DB so that the user would not lose much coin hours when signing the transaction. We could copy the full synchronized data.db from the hot wallet to the computer where the cold wallet is installed. And place it in $HOME/.skycoin/data.db. Then start the node with the network disabled.

$ skycoin daemon --launch-browser=false --disable-networking

Run the following command to sign the transaction:

$ skycoin cli signTransaction $RAW_TRANSACTION

The $RAW_TRANSACTION is the transaction string that we generated in the hot wallet.

If the cold wallet is encrypted, you will be prompted to enter the password to sign the transaction.

View Output

b700000000e6b869f570e2bfebff1b4d7e7c9e86885dbc34d6de988da6ff998e7acd7e6e14010000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000010000007531184ad0afeebbff2049b855e0921329cb1cb74d769ac57c057c9c8bd2b6810100000000ed5ea2ca4fe9b4560409b50c5bf7cb39b6c5ff6e50690f00000000000000000000000000

Once the transaction is signed, we could copy and save the signed transaction string and broadcast it in the hot wallet.

$ skycoin cli broadcastTransaction $SIGNED_RAW_TRANSACTION

A transaction id would be returned and you can check it in the explorer.

Deploy a public Skycoin API node with HTTPS

We recommend using caddy server to deploy a public Skycoin API node on a Linux server. The public API node should have the HTTPS support, which could be handled automatically by the caddy server. But we need to have a domain and create a DNS record to bind the server ip address to it.

Suppose we're going to deploy a Skycoin API node on apitest.skycoin.com, and we have already bound the server's IP to it. Follow the steps below to complete the deployment.

Install and run a skycoin api node

# Create a skycoin folder
$ mkdir $HOME/skycoin && cd $HOME/skycoin

# Download the latest skycoin binary from https://github.com/skycoin/skycoin/releases
$ wget https://downloads.skycoin.com/wallet/skycoin-VERSION-gui-standalone-linux-x64.tar.gz
$ tar -zxvf skycoin-VERSION-gui-standalone-linux-x64.tar.gz
$ cd skycoin-VERSION-gui-standalone-linux-x64

# Run with API enabled
$ ./skycoin -web-interface-port=6420 -host-whitelist=$DOMAIN_NAME -enable-api-sets="READ,TXN"

Note: The -host-whitelist flag is required, otherwise the node will return 403 Forbidden errors.

Install the caddy server

# Create a caddy folder
$ mkdir $HOME/caddy && cd $HOME/caddy

# Download the latest caddy from https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy/releases
$ wget https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy/releases/download/vVERSION/caddy_vVERSION_linux_amd64.tar.gz
$ tar -zxvf caddy_vVERSION_linux_amd64.tar.gz

The caddy tool would be exist in the folder, let's create a Caddyfile to define the reverse proxy rules now.

cat <<EOF >Caddyfile
apitest.skycoin.com {
   proxy / localhost:6420 {
      transparent
   }
}
EOF

Then run the caddy server

$ ./caddy

You will be prompted to enter an email address to receive the notifications from let's Encrypt. That's all about the deployment, check the https://apitest.skycoin.com/api/v1/version to see if the Skycoin API node is working correctly.

Responsible Disclosure

Security flaws in skycoin source or infrastructure can be sent to [email protected]. Bounties are available for accepted critical bug reports.

PGP Key for signing:

Key ID: 0x913BBD5206B19620

The fingerprint for this key is:

pub   ed25519 2019-09-17 [SC] [expires: 2023-09-16]
      98F934F04F9334B81DFA3398913BBD5206B19620
uid           [ultimate] iketheadore skycoin <[email protected]>
sub   cv25519 2019-09-17 [E] [expires: 2023-09-16]

Keybase.io account: https://keybase.io/iketheadore

Dependency Graph

made with goda

go run github.com/loov/goda@latest graph github.com/skycoin/skycoin/... | dot -Tsvg -o docs/skycoin-goda-graph.svg

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 9,714 Commits
.github		.github
ci-scripts		ci-scripts
ci_scripts		ci_scripts
cmd		cmd
config		config
docker/images/mainnet		docker/images/mainnet
docs		docs
electron		electron
explorer		explorer
scripts		scripts
src		src
templates		templates
vendor		vendor
.dockerignore		.dockerignore
.editorconfig		.editorconfig
.gitignore		.gitignore
.golangci.yml		.golangci.yml
.goreleaser-darwin-amd64.yml		.goreleaser-darwin-amd64.yml
.goreleaser-darwin-arm64.yml		.goreleaser-darwin-arm64.yml
.goreleaser-darwin.yml		.goreleaser-darwin.yml
.goreleaser-linux.yml		.goreleaser-linux.yml
.goreleaser-windows.yml		.goreleaser-windows.yml
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
DEVELOPMENT.md		DEVELOPMENT.md
DOCKER.md		DOCKER.md
FIBERCOIN-CONFIG.md		FIBERCOIN-CONFIG.md
INSTALLATION.md		INSTALLATION.md
INTEGRATION.md		INTEGRATION.md
Makefile		Makefile
README.md		README.md
docker_launcher.sh		docker_launcher.sh
go.mod		go.mod
go.sum		go.sum
iketheadore.asc		iketheadore.asc
peers.txt		peers.txt
run-client.sh		run-client.sh
run-daemon.sh		run-daemon.sh
skycoin.go		skycoin.go

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