Badcoin Core - Revived November 2025

Network Status: ✅ ACTIVE (Revived Nov 1, 2025) Current Height: 1,773,000+ blocks Website: https://badcryptopodcast.com

What is Badcoin?

Badcoin is a Bitcoin Core fork implementing auxiliary proof-of-work (auxpow) merged mining with 5 algorithms (SHA256d, Scrypt, Groestl, Skein, Yescrypt). Originally created for the Bad Crypto Podcast community in 2018, the network went dormant in 2024 and was successfully revived in November 2025.

Quick Start

Dependencies

macOS (Apple Silicon):

brew install boost libevent berkeley-db@4 openssl autoconf automake libtool

Linux (Ubuntu/Debian):

sudo apt-get install -y \
  build-essential libtool autotools-dev automake autoconf \
  pkg-config libssl-dev libevent-dev bsdmainutils git \
  libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev \
  libboost-program-options-dev libboost-thread-dev \
  libboost-chrono-dev libdb-dev libdb++-dev

Building

macOS (Apple Silicon):

./autogen.sh

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/libevent/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH"

arch -arm64 ./configure \
  --without-gui \
  --with-boost=/opt/homebrew/opt/boost \
  --host=aarch64-apple-darwin \
  --enable-asm=no \
  --disable-tests \
  --disable-bench \
  CPPFLAGS="-DBOOST_BIND_GLOBAL_PLACEHOLDERS"

arch -arm64 make -j$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)

Linux (x86_64 servers like Hetzner, DigitalOcean, etc.):

./autogen.sh

./configure \
  --without-gui \
  --disable-tests \
  --disable-bench \
  --with-incompatible-bdb \
  CPPFLAGS="-DBOOST_BIND_GLOBAL_PLACEHOLDERS"

make -j$(nproc)

Linux (Raspberry Pi / ARM64):

./autogen.sh

./configure \
  --without-gui \
  --disable-tests \
  --disable-bench \
  --with-incompatible-bdb \
  --with-boost-libdir=/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu \
  CPPFLAGS="-DBOOST_BIND_GLOBAL_PLACEHOLDERS"

make -j$(nproc)

⚠️ IMPORTANT: Do NOT use --disable-wallet or you won't be able to mine!

Running

Start the daemon (REQUIRED FLAGS):

./src/badcoind \
  -maxtipage=120000000 \
  -algo=yescrypt \
  -noonion \
  -daemon

Critical flags explained:

• -maxtipage=120000000 - Accept old blockchain timestamps (REQUIRED)
• -algo=yescrypt - Easiest CPU mining algorithm
• -noonion - Disable TOR (prevents random shutdowns on macOS)

Mining:

# Get a mining address
./src/badcoin-cli getnewaddress

# Mine blocks (replace ADDRESS with yours)
./src/badcoin-cli -rpcclienttimeout=1800 generatetoaddress 10 "ADDRESS"

Mining on remote servers (persist after SSH disconnect):

# Option 1: Use screen
screen -S mining
./src/badcoin-cli -rpcclienttimeout=1800 generatetoaddress 1000 "YOUR_ADDRESS"
# Press Ctrl+A, then D to detach
# Reconnect later: screen -r mining

# Option 2: Use tmux
tmux new -s mining
./src/badcoin-cli -rpcclienttimeout=1800 generatetoaddress 1000 "YOUR_ADDRESS"
# Press Ctrl+B, then D to detach
# Reconnect later: tmux attach -t mining

Monitoring:

# Check current block height
./src/badcoin-cli getblockcount

# Check wallet balance
./src/badcoin-cli getbalance

# Check blockchain sync status
./src/badcoin-cli getblockchaininfo

Stop the daemon:

./src/badcoin-cli stop

GUI Wallet (macOS Only)

Additional dependencies for GUI:

brew install qt@5 qrencode
brew unlink protobuf
brew install protobuf@21

Build with GUI:

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/libevent/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/homebrew/opt/qt@5/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/homebrew/opt/protobuf@21/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH"
export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/qt@5/bin:/opt/homebrew/opt/protobuf@21/bin:$PATH"

arch -arm64 ./configure \
  --with-gui=qt5 \
  --with-boost=/opt/homebrew/opt/boost \
  --host=aarch64-apple-darwin \
  --enable-asm=no \
  --disable-tests \
  --disable-bench \
  CPPFLAGS="-DBOOST_BIND_GLOBAL_PLACEHOLDERS -I/opt/homebrew/opt/protobuf@21/include" \
  LDFLAGS="-L/opt/homebrew/opt/protobuf@21/lib"

arch -arm64 make -j$(sysctl -n hw.ncpu)

Launch GUI wallet:

./src/qt/badcoin-qt -datadir=/path/to/data -maxtipage=120000000 -noonion &

Mining via GUI:

• Go to: Help → Debug window → Console tab
• Type: generatetoaddress 10 "YOUR_ADDRESS"

Note: GUI wallet includes badcoind, so don't run both simultaneously.

Important Notes

Consensus Bug Fix (Nov 2025)

This codebase includes a critical fix for floating-point arithmetic in block reward calculation that caused non-deterministic validation across different systems. Blocks before height 1,400,000 use lenient validation; future blocks enforce strict consensus.

Troubleshooting

"Method not found" error on createwallet:

• This version doesn't have createwallet - the wallet is created automatically
• Just use ./src/badcoin-cli getnewaddress directly

"Method not found" error on getnewaddress:

• Wallet support wasn't compiled in
• Rebuild WITHOUT --disable-wallet flag
• Make sure to include --with-incompatible-bdb

generatetoaddress returns empty array []:

• Node thinks it's still syncing
• Restart daemon with -maxtipage=120000000 flag
• Or add maxtipage=120000000 to your badcoin.conf

libdb_cxx headers missing:

sudo apt-get install libdb-dev libdb++-dev
# or
sudo apt-get install libdb5.3-dev libdb5.3++-dev

Found Berkeley DB other than 4.8:

• Add --with-incompatible-bdb to configure command

Known Issues

1. TOR Controller - Always use -noonion flag or daemon will randomly shutdown (macOS issue)
2. Old Timestamps - Must use -maxtipage=120000000 to accept historical blockchain
3. Mining Timeouts - RPC may timeout during mining, but block generation continues (this is normal)

Network Information

• Default P2P Port: 9012
• Default RPC Port: 9332
• Genesis Block: Nov 12, 2018
• Block Time: ~2-10 minutes (varies by algorithm)
• Total Supply: 21 billion BAD
• Algorithms: SHA256d, Scrypt, Groestl, Skein, Yescrypt

Revival Status

See STATUS.md for current blockchain state, roadmap, and community revival progress.

Community

• Original Repo: https://github.com/ScriptProdigy/Badcoin
• Telegram: Bad Crypto community
• BitcoinTalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5140081.0

License

Badcoin Core is released under the terms of the MIT license. See COPYING for more information.