Quickstart

Setup spaces on mainnet

Install Bitcoin Core

It can be installed from the official download page.

Configure RPC authentication in bitcoin.conf:

rpcuser=<your-username>
rpcpassword=<your-password>

Install Spaces Daemon

spaces is a tiny layer that connects to Bitcoin Core over RPC and scans transactions relevant to the protocol.

1. Download the latest binary from releases (must be v0.0.4 or higher for mainnet)

2. Verify installation

spaced --version
space-cli --version

Run Spaces

1. Ensure Bitcoin Core is fully synced

2. Start Spaces daemon

spaced --bitcoin-rpc-user <your-rpc-user> --bitcoin-rpc-password <your-rpc-password>

Create a wallet

Create the default wallet and get an address to receive coins

space-cli createwallet
space-cli getnewaddress

Send some BTC to the address you get and check your balance

space-cli balance

Auction process

In short, top level spaces are community identifiers limited to ~3600 spaces a year. Every day, the top 10 highest-bid spaces advance from pre-auctions to auctions learn more.

Opening an auction

You can check the explorer for currently open auctions . For example to open an auction for the space @bitcion

space-cli open bitcoin

You will get a similar output to this

[
  {
    "txid": "",
    "tags": ["bidouts", "commitment"]
  },
  {
    "txid": "",
    "tags": ["open"]
  }
]

Placing a bid

Find one of the spaces currently in auction and place a bid (amount is in sats)

space-cli bid nostr 1500

Check status of a space

space-cli getspace btc

You will get something like this

{
  "outpoint": "",
  "value": 662,
  "script_pubkey": "51202a7267b047254ad41e87458b902c286434e3764ffd2f2fdb46a9c8fafa6135e3",
  "name": "@btc",
  "covenant": {
    "type": "bid",
    "burn_increment": 1000,
    "signature": "........",
    "total_burned": 1000,
    "claim_height": null
  }
}

You can use listspaces command to see all space outputs you own including outputs that are actively in auction.

The bid covenant indicates spending this output requires either another bid spend or a registration spend if the claim height is reached learn more.

Claiming a space

If you're currently winning and the space entered the claim period, you can register it!

space-cli register bitcoin

You will get something like this

{
  "outpoint": "",
  "value": 662,
  "script_pubkey": "5120882cd5b0ef333be2efd7efd9bea0953f894677f1d5a638c8a3d13734e99d22e6",
  "name": "@bitcoin",
  "covenant": {
    "type": "transfer",
    "expire_height": 93050,
    "data": null,
  }
}

You may also watch the status of auctions on the explorer