KeyTree

KeyTree is a Bitcoin HDWallet command line tool. To build simply type Make in the directory.

Motivation

Excerpt from https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki

The Bitcoin reference client uses randomly generated keys. In order to avoid the necessity for a backup after every transaction, (by default) 100 keys are cached in a pool of reserve keys. Still, these wallets are not intended to be shared and used on several systems simultaneously. They support hiding their private keys by using the wallet encrypt feature and not sharing the password, but such "neutered" wallets lose the power to generate public keys as well.

Deterministic wallets do not require such frequent backups, and elliptic curve mathematics permit schemes where one can calculate the public keys without revealing the private keys. This permits for example a webshop business to let its webserver generate fresh addresses (public key hashes) for each order or for each customer, without giving the webserver access to the corresponding private keys (which are required for spending the received funds).

However, deterministic wallets typically consist of a single "chain" of keypairs. The fact that there is only one chain means that sharing a wallet happens on an all-or-nothing basis. However, in some cases one only wants some (public) keys to be shared and recoverable. In the example of a webshop, the webserver does not need access to all public keys of the merchant's wallet; only to those addresses which are used to receive customer's payments, and not for example the change addresses that are generated when the merchant spends money. Hierarchical deterministic wallets allow such selective sharing by supporting multiple keypair chains, derived from a single root.

Purpose

KeyTree is meant to be a program that lets users have the full flexibility and features of HDWallets available to them at their fingertips. KeyTree is meant to do one thing and do it well. It is meant to be a small program with minimal amount of code such that it is easily audible. The only dependency is OpenSSL. Thus it is easy to build and run on a freshly installed offline operating system, since OpenSSL usually comes pre-install in most popular Unix-like operating systems.

Though KeyTree is an implementation of HDWallets, it is not to be confused with services like BlockChain’s My Wallet or Armory. KeyTree is a bitcoin key generater and manager. KeyTree does not generate transactions or send them. It is meant to be used on an airgap, offline computer to generate keys.

There are other tools that have HDWallet implementations, but their purposes are different. For example, sx is more of a general purpose Bitcoin command-line tool for power users and Electrum uses it to enumerate accounts derived from a seed with the scheme m/0’/n/.

How to use:

The input seed is coverted to hex before it used as the master seed, or you can also use the --seedhex option to enter the seed in hex directly. Extended Keys can be in hex or base58. Examples below.

To use KeyTree simply do the following:

./kt
Enter Seed:
correct horse battery staple
Enter Chain:
0'/1/2

Use the hex option to enter the seed in hex:

./kt --seedhex 
Enter Seed in Hex:
7b1f95ed9a1c9319172c2dd4cc765fb82bad1a3be1cfc89fc37006c0dbbcbe3d
Enter Chain:
0'/1/2

Use the extended key option to enter the extended key in lieu of the seed:

./kt --extkey 
./kt -ek 

It is also possible to print multiple chain paths together:

./kt -ek
Enter Extended Key:
xprv9uHRZZhk6KAJC1avXpDAp4MDc3sQKNxDiPvvkX8Br5ngLNv1TxvUxt4cV1rGL5hj6KCesnDYUhd7oWgT11eZG7XnxHrnYeSvkzY7d2bhkJ7
Enter Chain:
0'/(3-6)'/(1-2)/8

To print data on all the nodes in the chain, use the all option:

./kt --all
./kt -a

It is also possible to print data on the nodes in a different order:

./kt --traverse levelorder
./kt -sh -trav postorder
./kt -ek -trav preorder

For more information on each node use the verbose option:

./kt --verbose
./kt -v

There is also the testnet option:

./kt --testnet
./kt -tn

Use the no echo option to not echo your inputs:

./kt --noecho
./kt -ne

For more information on how to use KeyTree do:

$./kt --help