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Get Started with CLI Wallet

This quick start guide covers basic steps you need to set up Alphabill command-line interface (CLI) wallet, get testnet assets in your wallet, and make a transaction from your wallet on public Alphabill testnet.

Prerequisites​

To build Alphabill CLI wallet binary, you must have the following build dependencies installed on your system:

  • Go (version 1.22 and later). For installation instructions, see Go's installation guide.
  • C compiler, recent versions of GCC are recommended. In Debian and Ubuntu repositories, GCC is part of the build-essential package. If you are on macOS, you can install GCC with Homebrew.

Step 1: Build Alphabill CLI Wallet Binary​

  1. Clone the remote alphabill-wallet repository:

    git clone https://github.com/alphabill-org/alphabill-wallet.git

  2. By default, git clone checks out the main development branch. To work with the public testnet, use version 0.4.0 of the code. Create a new branch from the v0.4.0 tag and switch to that branch:

    cd alphabill-wallet
    git checkout -b 0.4.0 tags/v0.4.0

  3. Once you have cloned the repository and checked out the desired branch, run the make build command in the new alphabill-wallet directory:

    make build

    This command will download all necessary build dependencies, run the tests, and build the abwallet binary. The output directory for the binary is alphabill-wallet/build.

Step 2: Create a New Wallet​

  1. To create a new wallet, go to the alphabill-wallet/build directory and run the wallet create command:

    cd build
    ./abwallet wallet create

    This command returns mnemonic key you can use to recover your wallet. The mnemonic key, also known as a recovery phrase or a seed phrase, is a unique 12-word phrase that is generated when you create a new wallet. This phrase is the key to your wallet and controls access to all your funds.

    warning

    Write down the phrase in the exact order in which you receive it, and keep it in a safe, offline place. You will only see this phrase once during the wallet creation. Never give your wallet's seed phrase to anyone, as it can be used to steal your wallet funds.

    The wallet create command creates a database for keys that will be used by the wallet, located at ~/.alphabill/wallet/accounts.db.

  2. Also, add a second public key to your wallet, as you need it later when transferring testnet ALPHA:

    ./abwallet wallet add-key
    Example response:
    Added key #2 0x03ddeb805aba6bb56b5f6351d51f44d11a374070032f95be5841e9b6420099a00a

  3. List public keys you just created using the wallet get-pubkeys command:

    ./abwallet wallet get-pubkeys
    Example response:
    #1 0x029871a8fbc1844d41ddd7cf0ceb292dbe33b8c29694c9675d13f8926f5deeb00b
    #2 0x03ddeb805aba6bb56b5f6351d51f44d11a374070032f95be5841e9b6420099a00a

    Make a note of it, including the 0x prefix, as you will need it in later steps.

Step 3: Get Testnet ALPHA​

After setting up your wallet, you can request testnet ALPHA and fungible tokens from the testnet faucet in the Alphabill Discord server. For each request, the faucet transfers 100 ALPHA and 100 fungible tokens (TEST-FT) to the given address, with a default limit of 5 requests per day per address.

  1. If you haven't joined the Alphabill Discord server yet, join now using the invite link: https://discord.com/invite/dcFURChe86

    Open the #testnet-faucet channel and paste your public key into the chat window:

  2. Once the faucet bot has confirmed your request, check your wallet to verify you have received 100 ALPHA and 100 TEST-FT tokens:

    • Check your wallet balance:

      ./abwallet wallet get-balance \
      --rpc-url https://money-partition.testnet.alphabill.org
      Example response:
      #1 100.000'000'00
      #2 0.000'000'00
      Total 100.000'000'00

    • List tokens in your wallet:

      ./abwallet wallet token list \
      --rpc-url https://tokens-partition.testnet.alphabill.org
      Example response:
      Tokens owned by account #1
      ID='4BBD81AB755A26741C19C1AAB54B61031D5FC5C1E7A053521D94B3421DE243D8', symbol='TEST-FT', amount='100.000'000', token-type='DE4EE474E513FFACAC81D0141CF334A1DDFD366340E0D4F619DD4266895A25FD' locked='' (fungible)
      Tokens owned by account #2

Step 4: Add Fee Credit​

Before you can make any transaction from your wallet, you need to have enough funds on your fee credit balance to pay for the cost of transactions and data storage on the blockchain. Each wallet account has its own fee credit balance for every partition.

Transaction fees are paid in Alphabill's native currency, ALPHA, and the fee per transaction is 0.000'000'01 ALPHA (that is, 1 tema). Actions that consist of three transactions (3 x 0.000'000'01 ALPHA) are: updating fee credit record, reclaiming fee credit, and consolidating bills.

  1. Add 1 ALPHA to your fee credit balance for managing fees on Money Partition:

    ./abwallet wallet fees add \
    --rpc-url https://money-partition.testnet.alphabill.org \
    --log-file ~/.alphabill/wallet.log
    Example response:
    Successfully created 1 fee credits on money partition.
    Paid 0.000'000'02 ALPHA fee for transactions.

    If you want to add 1 ALPHA to other partition's fee credit balance, specify the partition name and its URL:

    • User Token Partition

      ./abwallet wallet fees add \
      --rpc-url https://money-partition.testnet.alphabill.org \
      --partition tokens \
      --partition-rpc-url https://tokens-partition.testnet.alphabill.org \
      --log-file ~/.alphabill/wallet.log
    tip

    If you want to add more funds to the fee credit balance than the default 1 ALPHA, use the --amount flag at the end of the command and specify the amount.

  2. Check your wallet fee credit balance on Money Partition:

    ./abwallet wallet fees list \
    --rpc-url https://money-partition.testnet.alphabill.org
    Example response:
    Partition: money
    Account #1 0.999'999'98
    Account #2 0.000'000'00

    To check the fee credit balance on other partitions:

    • User Token Partition

      ./abwallet wallet fees list \
      --rpc-url https://money-partition.testnet.alphabill.org \
      --partition tokens \
      --partition-rpc-url https://tokens-partition.testnet.alphabill.org

Step 5: Transfer Assets​

  1. Transfer a bill worth of 10 ALPHA to your second account:

    ./abwallet wallet send \
    --address WALLET_PUBKEY_#2 \
    --rpc-url https://money-partition.testnet.alphabill.org \
    --amount 10 \
    --log-file ~/.alphabill/wallet.log

    You should see similar output like in the example below:

    Example response:
    Successfully confirmed transaction(s)
    Paid 0.000'000'01 fees for transaction(s).

  2. Finally, check your wallet balance:

    ./abwallet wallet get-balance \
    --rpc-url https://money-partition.testnet.alphabill.org
    Example response:
    #1 89.000'000'00
    #2 10.000'000'00
    Total 99.000'000'00

Next Steps​

  • Check out the User Token Partition tutorials to learn how to use the CLI wallet to create, mint and transfer your own fungible and non-fungible tokens.
  • Learn how to use the Money Partition capabilities to make payments from one wallet to another, manage bills in your wallet, and swap smaller bills into one larger bill.