RubyCoin aims to be the one library that rules them all crypto-currencies. Currently, only the following crypto-currencies are supported:

1. Bitcoin
2. Peercoin
3. Litecoin
4. Dogecoin
5. Namecoin
6. Feathercoin
7. Primecoin
8. Megacoin
9. Worldcoin
10. Quarkcoin

However, adding support for other crypto-currencies is fairly simple and contributions and pull-requests are always welcome.

Installing the gem is trivial. It has extremely few dependencies besides OpenSSL.

    $ gem install rubycoin

Or, if you are using bundler in your project, add the following line to your Gemfile and you're ready to roll.

    gem 'rubycoin'

Using RubyCoin for generating addresses and private keys is extremely simple. Say if you'd want to generate a Bitcoin address, all you need to do is make a new Bitcoin address object like so:

require 'rubycoin'

btc = RubyCoin::Bitcoin::Address.new
btc.address       # 1HGvB7sN6XBhz7Sd2TSz4Yt1vCqWvZZbTD
btc.private_key   # KzJCkE79nZ7Ha8W4NtyjdJNFpjghuFwq5AxjKkPWCauY3NNKvjny

By default, compressed keys and addresses will be generated as they are the preferred standard. However, should you need uncompressed keys and addresses, all you need is to call new the following way:

    RubyCoin::Bitcoin::Address.new(format: :uncompressed)

It is likely that RubyCoin will support deterministic and hierarchial wallets in the future once the security implications are completely understood.

Currently, the primary goal is to be able to generate addresses for as many as crypto-currencies as possible. The main candidates are:

1. Litecoin
2. Peercoin
3. Dogecoin
4. Mastercoin
5. Namecoin
6. Quark
7. Feathercoin
8. Primecoin
9. Megacoin
10. Infinitecoin
11. Novacoin
12. Worldcoin
13. Darkcoin
14. Vertcoin
15. Maxcoin

Once the address generation mechanism and API is fairly stable for these currencies, signing messages and interacting will respective block-chains over the network may be considered.

Also, complete test coverage will be neat. It is currently absent. However, you can check generated addresses and keys manually by using the tools like Brainwallet.

• Amol Hatwar
• Girish Tryambake

The code in this repository is released under the liberal MIT license. A copy can be found in the LICENSE file.

Copyright © 2010-2014 - Amol Hatwar.