RPC cheatsheet

The most useful bgold-cli calls, grouped by task. All examples assume you're talking to a local daemon with rpcuser=explorer and rpcpassword=.... Substitute the actual values.

Use jq for parsing

bgold-cli returns JSON. Pipe through jq to extract fields. Install with apt install jq.

Quick health check

# Is the daemon up and synced?
bgold-cli getblockchaininfo | jq '{blocks, headers, verificationprogress, chain, size_on_disk}'

# Peer count
bgold-cli getnetworkinfo | jq '{version, subversion, protocolversion, connections, networks}'

# Memory usage
bgold-cli getmemoryinfo | jq '.locked'

# Uptime
ps -o etime= -p "$(pgrep -d, bgoldd)"

Network

# List connected peers
bgold-cli getpeerinfo | jq '.[] | {addr, subver, version, bytessent, bytesrecv, conntime}'

# Add a static peer
bgold-cli addnode "btg.example.com:8338" "add"

# Ban a peer (forks / misbehaving)
bgold-cli setban "1.2.3.4" "add" 86400

# List bans
bgold-cli listbanned

Blocks

# Current tip
bgold-cli getbestblockhash
bgold-cli getblockcount

# Block by height
HASH=$(bgold-cli getblockhash 800000)
bgold-cli getblock "$HASH" | jq '{height, hash, confirmations, time, nTx: .tx | length}'

# Block by hash
bgold-cli getblock "00000000abc..." | jq '.difficulty'

# Block header only (smaller payload)
bgold-cli getblockheader "00000000abc..." | jq '{height, merkleroot, time, bits, difficulty}'

Transactions

# Look up a tx
bgold-cli getrawtransaction "txid" 1 | jq

# Decode a raw tx
bgold-cli decoderawtransaction "0200000001..."

# Send a tx
bgold-cli sendtoaddress "GYf8nyo1c8oWsHzbvL1fD3Ckgg68UzBi5J" 0.5

# Create + sign + send (full control)
UTXO=$(bgold-cli listunspent | jq -c '.[] | select(.amount > 1) | {txid, vout}' | head -1)
TXID=$(echo "$UTXO" | jq -r .txid)
VOUT=$(echo "$UTXO" | jq -r .vout)
RAW=$(bgold-cli createrawtransaction "[{\"txid\":\"$TXID\",\"vout\":$VOUT}]" \
    "{\"GYf8nyo1c8oWsHzbvL1fD3Ckgg68UzBi5J\":0.5}")
SIGNED=$(bgold-cli signrawtransaction "$RAW" | jq -r .hex)
bgold-cli sendrawtransaction "$SIGNED"

Mempool

# Mempool summary
bgold-cli getmempoolinfo | jq '{size, bytes, usage, maxmempool, mempoolminfee}'

# All tx in mempool
bgold-cli getrawmempool

# Mempool entry detail
bgold-cli getmempoolentry "txid" | jq '{wtxid, vsize, time, fees, depends}'

Mining

# Network hashrate estimate
bgold-cli getnetworkhashps 120  # 120-block window

# Mining info
bgold-cli getmininginfo | jq '{blocks, difficulty, networkhashps, pooledtx, chain}'

# Block template
TEMPLATE=$(bgold-cli getblocktemplate '{"rules":["segwit"]}')
echo "$TEMPLATE" | jq '{height, target, mintime, curtime, bits}'

Wallet

# Get a new receive address
bgold-cli getnewaddress "" "bech32"     # native segwit
bgold-cli getnewaddress "" "p2sh-segwit" # wrapped segwit
bgold-cli getnewaddress "" "legacy"      # P2PKH

# Balance
bgold-cli getbalance
bgold-cli getbalances | jq

# Unspent outputs
bgold-cli listunspent | jq '.[] | {txid, vout, amount, address, confirmations}'

# Backup
cp ~/.bitcoingold/wallet.dat /backup/wallet-$(date +%F).dat

# Dump all private keys (DANGER)
bgold-cli dumpprivkey "GYf8nyo1c8oWsHzbvL1fD3Ckgg68UzBi5J"

# Import a private key
bgold-cli importprivkey "L1aW4aubDFB7yfras2S1mKx8jJ..." "" false

Chain info

# Difficulty
bgold-cli getdifficulty

# Txoutset summary
bgold-cli gettxoutsetinfo | jq

# Total supply (in satoshis)
bgold-cli gettxoutsetinfo | jq '.total_amount'

v0.17.3 specific

# Finalized block (rolling checkpoint)
bgold-cli getfinalizedblockhash

# Block subsidy at a given height
bgold-cli getblocksubsidy 800000

# Chain tips (in case of a recent reorg)
bgold-cli getchaintips | jq '.[] | {height, hash, status, branchlen}'

Useful one-liners

# Last 10 block heights + hashes
for h in $(seq $(($(bgold-cli getblockcount) - 9)) $(bgold-cli getblockcount)); do
    bgold-cli getblockhash $h
done | xargs -I {} sh -c 'echo "{}  $(bgold-cli getblock {} | jq .height)  $(bgold-cli getblock {} | jq -r .time | xargs -I {} date -d @{} +%FT%TZ)"'

# Top 10 addresses by balance (requires indexing)
bgold-cli listaddressgroupings | jq '.. | .address? // empty' | sort -u | head

HTTP form

Every RPC can be called over HTTP. Useful for shell scripts without bgold-cli.

curl -u explorer:PASSWORD \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -d '{"id":1,"method":"getblockchaininfo","params":[]}' \
     http://127.0.0.1:8332 | jq

Error handling

bgold-cli returns an error object in JSON on failure:

{
  "result": null,
  "error": {"code": -5, "message": "Invalid address"},
  "id": 1
}

Common error codes:

Code	Meaning
-1	Generic JSON-RPC parse error
-5	Invalid address / parameter
-6	Insufficient funds
-8	Transaction not found
-28	Loading… (initial sync not complete)
-32601	Method not found (typo, version-specific)

If you see -28 a lot, your node is still syncing. Wait.

Source

• Bitcoin Core RPC docs — the BTC version applies; Bitcoin Gold (BTG) adds a few coin-specific methods.
• bgold-cli help — auto-generated from the binary.
• bgold-cli help <method> — detailed parameter docs.