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Basic Wallet Operations

📹 Video walkthrough: Coming soon

This guide covers everything you can do with basic Bitcoin wallets in Caravan-X.

Accessing Wallet Features

From the main menu, select 🏦 Bitcoin Wallets:

List all wallets
Create new wallet
View wallet details
Send funds between wallets
Fund wallet with regtest coins

Listing Wallets

TUI: Bitcoin Wallets → List all wallets CLI: caravan-x list-wallets

Displays all wallets loaded in your Bitcoin Core node, including their type (regular, watch-only, blank) and balance.

Creating a New Wallet

TUI: Bitcoin Wallets → Create new wallet CLI: caravan-x create-wallet --name <name>

Step-by-step:

  1. Enter a wallet name (e.g., alice)
  2. Choose the wallet type:
    • Regular wallet — Has private keys, can sign transactions
    • Watch-only wallet — No private keys, can only monitor addresses
    • Blank wallet — Empty wallet, no HD seed (advanced use)
  3. Wallet is created instantly

All wallets are descriptor wallets (modern Bitcoin Core format) with load_on_startup = true.

CLI Examples:

# Regular wallet
caravan-x create-wallet --name alice

# Watch-only wallet
caravan-x create-wallet --name my_watch --watch-only

Viewing Wallet Details

TUI: Bitcoin Wallets → View wallet details

Select a wallet to see:

  • Balance (confirmed + unconfirmed)
  • Addresses (generated so far)
  • UTXOs (unspent transaction outputs)
  • Wallet type and descriptor information

Funding a Wallet with Regtest Coins

TUI: Bitcoin Wallets → Fund wallet with regtest coins CLI: caravan-x fund-wallet --name <wallet> --blocks <n>

In regtest mode, you can mine blocks directly to a wallet's address. Each block produces a 50 BTC coinbase reward (which requires 100 block confirmations to become spendable).

Step-by-step:

  1. Select the wallet to fund
  2. Enter the number of blocks to mine (default: 1)
  3. Caravan-X generates a new address from the wallet and mines blocks to it
  4. If this is the first funding, mine at least 101 blocks so the first coinbase becomes spendable

Quick funding:

# Mine 10 blocks to alice (gives 500 BTC, first coinbase spendable after 101 total blocks)
caravan-x fund-wallet --name alice --blocks 10

Sending Funds Between Wallets

TUI: Bitcoin Wallets → Send funds between wallets CLI: caravan-x send --from <wallet_a> --to <wallet_b> --amount <btc>

Step-by-step:

  1. Select the source wallet (must have a balance)
  2. Select or enter the destination wallet
  3. Enter the amount in BTC
  4. Caravan-X creates, signs, and broadcasts the transaction
  5. Optionally mine a block to confirm the transaction immediately

CLI Example:

caravan-x send --from alice --to bob --amount 1.5

Tip: In regtest mode, transactions stay unconfirmed until you mine a block. Caravan-X offers to mine one automatically after sending.