The only requirement is a Linux/macOS system with a fairly recent Rust toolchain installed. Since Linux distros tend to lack behind with updates, the quickest way to install the Rust compiler and Cargo is
rustup.rs. You can head there and follow their instructions, after which you can test if everything went fine by running cargo version, which should print something like:
cargo 1.45.0 (744bd1fbb 2020-06-15)
At the time of writing, the project requires cargo >= 1.45.0, which is the latest stable as of June 2020. If you have an older version installed with rustup.rs, you can upgrade it with rustup update.
If you really don’t wanna pipe the output of curl into sh, you can also try using a Docker image and working inside of it, but that’s meant for more advanced
users and won’t be covered in this guide.
Once Cargo is installed, you can proceed to install the interactive Magical Bitcoin shell directly from the GitHub repository, by running:
cargo install --git https://github.com/magicalbitcoin/magical-bitcoin-wallet --features=cli-utils --example magic
This command will probably take a while to finish, since it will fetch and compile all the dependencies and the magical-bitcoin-wallet itself. Once it’s done, you can check if everything went fine
by running magic --help which should print something like this:
Magical Bitcoin Wallet 0.1.0
Riccardo Casatta <riccardo@casatta.it>:Alekos Filini <alekos.filini@gmail.com>
A modern, lightweight, descriptor-based wallet
USAGE:
magic [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] --descriptor <DESCRIPTOR> [SUBCOMMAND]
FLAGS:
-h, --help Prints help information
-v Sets the level of verbosity
-V, --version Prints version information
OPTIONS:
-c, --change_descriptor <DESCRIPTOR> Sets the descriptor to use for internal addresses
-d, --descriptor <DESCRIPTOR> Sets the descriptor to use for the external addresses
-n, --network <NETWORK> Sets the network [default: testnet] [possible values: testnet, regtest]
-s, --server <SERVER:PORT> Sets the Electrum server to use [default: tn.not.fyi:55001]
-w, --wallet <WALLET_NAME> Selects the wallet to use [default: main]
SUBCOMMANDS:
broadcast Extracts the finalized transaction from a PSBT and broadcasts it to the network
create_tx Creates a new unsigned tranasaction
get_balance Returns the current wallet balance
get_new_address Generates a new external address
help Prints this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
list_unspent Lists the available spendable UTXOs
policies Returns the available spending policies for the descriptor
repl Opens an interactive shell
sign Signs and tries to finalize a PSBT
sync Syncs with the chosen Electrum server