TXT (Transaction Tape) is a portable Bitcoin transaction storage system which lets you store, manage, and share bitcoin transaction bundles with semantic metadata attached.

What is it?

Just like how Content Management Systems (CMS) provide an easy way to store and manage content, TXT provides an easy way to store, organize, and manage Bitcoin transactions through semantic metadata.

Simply save bitcoin transaction IDs or raw transactions to your TXT, and you immediately get all the powerful features for your transaction collection right out of the box, such as:

1. Transaction Explorer and Search Engine
2. READ/WRITE HTTP API
3. Auto-sync with Miner API
4. Instant data feed channels
5. Portable backup storage
6. More...

Examples

Check out some examples:

1. Bitpic.txt: A TXT node for Bitpic
2. C.txt: A Bitcoin File Search Engine, powered by TXT.

Changelog

To check out the entire feature update and upgrade history, see here:

Change Log

Architecture

1. Data Structure

TXT adds a semantic layer to Bitcoin transactions.

Prior to TXT, searching for bitcoin transactions was limited to utilizing the transaction data itself (such as transaction ID or push data filters).

With TXT, transactions can be wrapped and indexed with ANY semantic metadata, introducing a whole new dimension to organizing and sharing bitcoin transactions, something not possible with just pure, raw transactions.

The semantic layer can be used to encode:

• intent
• filter
• trigger
• privacy
• ephemerality
• non-determinism
• structure
• and various other features which can ONLY exist as metadata (data about data).

For example, you may want to create and/or share a bundle of transactions enclosing encrypted content. With the semantic metadata, you can keep the content encypted while still being able to describe the transaction bundle as: "these encrypted gibberish transactions are actually all my emails".

2. Components

TXT is made up of two components:

1. Tape: Portable storage format, powered by SQLite
2. Container: TXT tape player/recorder, powered by Docker

Creating a TXT tape is like creating an infinite playlist. Just like how you create a playlist by adding songs, you can create a TXT tape by adding transactions, which is as easy as a simple HTTP POST request.

Through the built-in HTTP GET API, the tape can be read even as it's being written (via POST API) or exported and shared as a portable SQLite file.

3. Operation

How does TXT fit into the greater Bitcoin ecosystem?

TXT was designed to be a neutral storage format that can seamlessly integrate into the rest of the ecosystem. Here's an overview:

1. Transaction Source
   1. Wallets: push a transaction to TXT to store it after the wallet has successfully sent it. Learn more Here and Here.
   2. API Providers: send crawled transactions to TXT
2. Transaction Processor
   1. Miners: Synchronize transaction confirm status with TXT through Merchant API.
3. Transaction Consumer
   1. Backup: store TXT tape anywhere as an archive
   2. Agents: use the TXT API to fetch data
   3. Apps: use TXT as the single source of your application, crawl TXT to build your backend.
   4. You: use TXT as a personal transaction management system
   5. Peer TXT: export TXT tape and share with other peers.