ClearCoin API

The ClearCoin API is now up and running on the testnet ClearCoin:

Documentation

Python code that makes it easy to interact with ClearCoin is up on github. It does double-duty as a command-line tool to try out API commands; for example:


$ clearcoin_api.py escrow_list
{u'current': [u'XYDnDXTGDrfRJdsXNNXtoF'], u'expired': []}

$ clearcoin_api.py escrow_read XYDnDXTGDrfRJdsXNNXtoF
{u'escrow_id': u'XYDnDXTGDrfRJdsXNNXtoF', u'release_address': u'miGuMc6qtVEKS6Pf1jKddaa81DeHjMzkpB', u'expires': 1306133393, u'amount_available': 20.0, u'amount_pending_confirmation': 0, u'amount_released': 30.0, u'state': u'active', u'fund_address': u'mvnpMSHDVQy1hQGgmdjFfv3PxQYgzRCz6Q'}


API functionality will be enabled on production ClearCoin within the next week or so; I have a little bit more work to do to make sure the API can't be used to attempt denial-of-service attacks (by creating thousands of escrow accounts, for example).

Name your transactions, and other improvements

I've been improving the ClearCoin user interface over the last couple of weeks; here's what I've been up to:

First, you can now give your transactions a short, descriptive name when you create them; that makes the transaction list much friendlier. The name isn't shown to your trading partner, it is just for your own use.

Second, I made several improvements to the receiver's transaction status page (the one you show to your trading partner to prove you've deposited the right number of coins). It will now show unconfirmed coins as soon as ClearCoin gets them, and if a release request was made, will report the date of the request.

I also changed the charity escrow logic so that you never pay ClearCoin fees on unreleased bitcoins. If you create a charity escrow, deposit more than 100 Bitcoins, and the transaction goes bad (so the coins are donated to charity), any bitcoins that you would have paid in ClearCoin fees will be refunded to you. So, for example, if you deposit 201 BTC (200 for the receiver, 1 BTC for the ClearCoin fee) and the transaction expires before the coins are released, 200 BTC will go to the charity and 1 bitcoin will be refunded to your refund address.

Finally, I've been working on a JSON-RPC api for ClearCoin; I still have a little more work to do on it, and I need to create a testnet version of ClearCoin so you can test your applications using funny money, but it should be ready in another week or so.

Welcome to the ClearCoin Blog

We will be using this blog to talk about new features for the ClearCoin bitcoin escrow service, and let you know what we're working on.

As always, we welcome your feedback and comments!