Bitcoin Forum

Hello everyone!

We are thrilled to announce blockread.io, an API for Bitcoin BTC that we believe can be a valuable tool for developers building applications using Bitcoin network data.

Blockread.io is a flexible and user-friendly API that allows developers to interact with the Bitcoin network and leverage Bitcoin as a payment method.

Try blockread.io and experience how easy it is to build powerful Bitcoin applications. You can check out our documentation at https://api.blockread.io/btc/docs and the Swagger at https://btc.blockread.io/swagger.

We would love to hear your feedback about blockread.io. Our team has put a lot of effort into making blockread.io a valuable resource for developers working with Bitcoin, and we hope you'll give it a try.

Thank you for considering blockread.io for your development needs. We look forward to hearing from you!


P.S
This is our donation address in case anyone wants to support our project
Bitcoin:
bc1q5rc6wwmz2053k70d5cqge7xgdv48hmevpr8sme

Zcash:
t1V9QMioEB9vxEfzXTwoJM2y7mmYsQwYQPN

Best,
Blockread Team


Update:

Now we support BCH and LTC as well
https://api.blockread.io/bch
https://api.blockread.io/ltc

the documentation is the same as BTC

The API that you provide really helps developers to be able to develop APPs that require data from the BTC data network. The documentation provided is also very easy for developers to understand. However, it seems that the website cannot be accessed, it seems that it has not been fully developed. But overall this is a pretty good project.

Thanks for the feedback! may I ask which link doesnt work? because it works at my end.
for example try this one:
https://btc.merapi.io/network/stats

Your main website seems to be inaccessible. You can see the picture taken

https://i.ibb.co/RzMNVLB/image-2023-03-13-141850556.png

Yes, You are right! We don't have a landing page yet, we were busy with the service and not good at front-end stuff to be honest, will take care of it soon :)

But the service itself is developed and accessible now!

yes indeed the service is already working and I think it's pretty good, but it would be nice if you could also develop the front page of your website, because by developing the front page of your website it will make it easier for users to be able to see the features of the API that you provide and what are the use cases for their application development and also how can they ask questions or find FAQs for the API. But it's a very good API  ;)

Great project. I would certainly be open to trying it in the future.


The error posted above says that the your domain merapi.io is not attached to an IP address yet. You should probably go to its DNS settings and at least attach it to a stock NGINX page, or you can try one of the single-page website hosts such as Caard.co which allow you to develop a website with no coding at all.

Glad to hear that, looking forward to your future feedback!
Thanks for the tip regarding Carrd.co, will try it out.

P.S.
Please share it with others if possible.

Not to be a buzz killer, but what is the point of a service if the said service has no platform to offer it's services? First thing for an online service is a front end complete website.
In a few hours will check it out if it's working however.

I get your point, but we do have a page introducing the project with the full documentation, it is just not bound to the main domain(going to take care of it soon anyways)

BTW, Would love to get your feedback when you got time!

I made a few tests and so some 404 erros and strange results. Liek this one:

https://btc.merapi.io/download/tx/40ff70b97334699d71a552ab5ea97c996fa8d64a9e0dc0041ec1701b10ed6914

From this page in the docs:
https://btc-docs.merapi.io/#download-transaction

https://i.imgur.com/GZZgSqa.png

Apologies for that, it was a problem in the documentation(the hash didn't exist)! we updated the docs and it works fine now.

one example:
https://btc.merapi.io/tx/9421c806a8f3fd46841241659637d75b944b42af61fabe7b9359349bc50d2ea6

Note that we stopped the syncing to do an update, so for the next hour if you don't see the last 15-20 blocks, that is the reason.

Who said that? If you're smart enough you'd know you can access the API endpoints and figure out the rest. And there is an API documentation: https://btc.merapi.io/swagger what else do you need?

I agree, I would just redirect merapi.io to
https://btc-docs.merapi.io/#introduction tbh.
I haven't poked around just yet but on the top this looks nice.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback if you both got some time, and please share it with others if possible, we are trying to get a sense how the community reacts to the project and how we can make it better.

From tl;dr (and could not find it anywhere) what info are you logging and keeping?
Most of us here have privacy a bit more in our minds then a lot of other people / users.

From the tests I did it looks nice, but if you are going to logging and keeping and trying to monetize everything thing I do you are going to have trouble getting users.
If you purge all data after 24 hours, just so you do have some logging if support is needed is a different story.

-Dave

So basically this is a REST API isn't it ?!

It uses HTTPS as communication protocol, request/get/post etc to request stuff... and JSON as feedback/response.

So this is REST ?! ;)

Would be a little simpler to mention that in the introduction ! ;)

Oh, by the way, I like this idea/API a lot !

WELL DONE !

But will it keep up and running ?!

Why you provide this functionality for free ? What is the catch ? ;)

Maybe thrive on donations ? Or advertisement ? Spying ?

Thanks for checking it out! This is basically a service that you can use by calling it or subscribing to topics by sockets!

We are not going to keep it running for free for sure! We are trying to get People's opinions on this first! When others see value in the project and want to use it, that is when you we start monetizing it(like many other projects), and donations are always appreciated(and actually common in Bitcoin community). And Nah, we are not into spying! not our thing :)

Hello. I run this website  where I get some blockdata from mempool.space

This tool below shows the balance of multiple addresses.
I am struggling to find an api which would allow to check dozens or hundreds of addresses

https://bitcoindata.science/bitcoin-balance-check.html

However,  this is just a hobby and I have no money to support your project

But maybe some partnership could benefit us both.

Take a look if I can use your api.

I had 6k unique visitors last month

it will be more unique if you can generate a link with your addresses list so you don't enter them manually every time but just open the url and it will show those addresses balances every time

GET BALANCE - GET BALANCE & GENERATE URL

Right now we return the total balance for multi addresses. Let me see what we can do. I try to implement it in the next couple of days. Then we can talk about a possible partnership.

I understand that the API is currently free, but I would imagine there are still some limits on how many requests one can make per second or minute?

Also, regarding this: https://btc-docs.merapi.io/#lock-on-address

It says "incoming" transactions. Do you have something similar for outgoing transactions?

No limit ATM, But eventually we are going to do that. note that we are running the service on a not-very-powerful server, soon we plan to migrate that to a much better set of servers.


Yes, try https://btc-docs.merapi.io/#spent-to-address
and I am going to make some changes to the documentation, it has many typos which don't look good(Sorry for that!)

Update:
I made some changes to the docs and some links were changed.
so, these two are the new ones:
https://btc-docs.merapi.io/#lock-to-address
https://btc-docs.merapi.io/#spent-from-address

added this:
https://btc-docs.merapi.io/#get-balance-of-multiple-addresses-seperately

Please check this out, and let me know what you think.


P.S
Please send an email to me so we can catch up.

https://btc.merapi.io/swagger doesn't work. Web server is down Cloudflare 521.

Sorry for that, it was a server failure! trying to migrate to a better servers soon.

Is the API down at the moment? I'm trying to use Socket to watch an address and I keep getting a timeout error. I'm basically doing the exact same as you are doing in the documentation, just in Python instead:

I am really sorry for that, yes it is down. The server has crashed down for some reasons and the support team is not responding to my tickets. I will let you know when it is back online.
P.S
It is my first priority to find a better server so we don't face such issues in future.

What are you currently using? Have you considered using AWS API Gateway? There's a free tier available, so that's 1 million API calls received free (per month) for the first year.

we are using a server from a datacenter (not AWS, too expensive for us ATM), the ideal situation is to use a set of servers to handle data loss and service outage.

the service is up BTW

My question is about the design of your API, particularly I am interested in why you have decided to use POST methods for some operations, for example:

1. Get UTXO of multiple addresses
2. Get balance of multiple addresses
3. Get history of addresses
4. Get transactions by IDs

Can't this information be obtained via simple GET request that doesn't imply modification of server data? For example, the list of addresses or transaction IDs could be included in a request URL directly as a query string. Or is it done for privacy purposes to prevent others to intercept potentially sensitive information? Sorry, if my question doesn't make sense, I am still new in API development.

Would you mind adding some additional functionality to make the life of developers and regular user even easier? For example, I would like to have an option to specify fields when making a GET request, search addresses by first characters, sort them by balance or filter them by specific condition.

The ideal situation is to use get method(as you see in most of the endpoints), but sometimes the data is too big(bigger than 2048 characters which is the Get limit), that is why for the methods that possibly require more than the Get limit size, we used Post method.


When you say specify fields, you mean the returned data should be what you exactly need?(based on the specified fields), in this case, it is doable but not that common, if I misunderstood your question, please clarify.
And regarding the search feature, this is interesting and of course doable, and makes sense if we remove addresses with zero balance periodically(otherwise it would be a too big dataset), the thing is it adds extra costs to our infrastructure, so let me see if it is possible to do it for now or we should postpone it to the future where we have some funds. BTW , if you don't mind me asking, do you have any specific use case for it?

Fields parameter is only applicable for "get all" type of API endpoints. In my opinion, it makes API more flexible, particularly it becomes easier for developers to massage the fetched data, save processing power and internet traffic. Currently, you have many endpoints to retrieve different information about a single bitcoin address (like details, UTXO, history, balance, etc). You could also add another endpoint that retrieves the information about all the funded addresses in the blockchain. Without fields specified, a response may contain full information about each address. But with fields, the following will occur:

Request:

Response:


Not yet, but look at the link under my avatar: it a simple web application for signing and verification of bitcoin messages with backend written in Python. In the future, I am planning to rewrite it in Javascript or something and add some other interesting features besides message manipulations. Your API may come in handy.

I see! We are going to consider adding the 'fields' parameter in the future but note that internet traffic is not that high since we are using Gzip to compress responses.


Also, we are going to add the search for address by first characters in the next couple of weeks. Going to update you regarding this.
And please keep in touch if you have any questions,  other suggestions or feedback.

Update:

We had some problems in the last couple of days since we have been changing servers. We will return online with a stable infrastructure in a few days.

May, 5th
Update 2: the services are moved and are syncing, it takes around 3 days till it is fully synced.

The service is transferred to the new servers and is fully synced! Give it a try!

Is this merapi you say can be used to build exchanges, wallets, Dapps, and block explorers? I'm just asking because I'm not that familiar with such things.

      And besides the topic you made is based on my understanding I'm just not sure, is this merapi made to change the way people interact with the bitcoin blockchain? I just thought.

The short answer is yes! They can build all that and many other things which an RPC on a node might not provide most efficiently and in a production mode(in the case of exchanges, I am not sure they feel comfortable using an API to handle their accounts, though.) And, I guess you are being modest and know more about that! :-)

And, No! they can interact with Bitcoin Blockchain as they prefer. This is not a new method(blockchair is providing APIs for example), we are just providing endpoints that can deliver what developers require but don't find or it is more costly or less efficient on a node.

We added the search address option(the documentation is not updated yet)
you can try it with something like this:
https://btc.merapi.io/address/search?q=bitcoin

We changed the domain, and the service is available at https://btc-docs.blockread.io/
Sorry for this change!

It throws an internal server error whenever I try to access the API documentation,  the same is true for API itself. Could you explain why this happens and also how exactly you monitor the server status? Specifically, I am interested in internal mechanisms and implementation tricks that allow for faster response to errors on the server side. As for the search option, it is a great addition that is going to make the life of API consumers a lot easier since it works very fast (at least for queries I was testing it with) and is user-friendly. I would also add support for RegExp to make queries even more flexible, but it is not that important because such type of functionality is of rare need. By the way, will the search only work with Legacy-type addresses, or are you planning to expand it for multisig, SegWit, Taproot, etc.?

Sorry for all the trouble, as you know we were in the process of the whole infrastructure and decided to change the routes as well which we rolled back, so the doc is available at https://btc-docs.blockread.io and the API https://btc.blockread.io/..

we use different scripts to check the performance and in case of trouble, they send emails and call us through a third party if necessary. Didn't get the internal mechanism question, would be helpful if you elaborate(as far as I know we don't use a specific mechanism(the reason might be when the service is down, it doesn't wait up for the answer, and it responds pretty quickly). btw, I can share with you the whole system design if you like too(send me and email in that case)


Yes! we are adding Segwit and Taproot as well, it is going to be available in a couple of days(syncing the data ATM). Also, we made an MVP type of thing to show how fun and fast this search is, it will be available at https://btc-vanity.blockread.io in a couple of hours.

merapi.io & blockread.io doesn't work so what's the latest from your side have you discontinued the project?

no, on the contrary, we expanded the project to BCH and LTC as well! we did some re-routing to make it more memorable for the future where there are many other coins(sorry for this!)


Service Routes:

- BTC: https://api.blockread.io/btc

- BCH: https://api.blockread.io/bch

- LTC: https://api.blockread.io/ltc
 
E.g
https://api.blockread.io/btc/network/info

Documentation:

- BTC: https://api.blockread.io/btc/docs

- BCH: https://api.blockread.io/bch/docs

- LTC: https://api.blockread.io/ltc/docs

(the documentation of BCH and LTC will be available within two days, but basically they are the same as BTC)

Also we are working o the sockets to make them available in the next couple of days(we need to make some changes due to rerouting)

It looks good you've expanded to BCH & LTC so it's a work in progress. Is it staying as active service with donations or paid service in future ?

It will be a paid service at some point for businesses interested in having high TPS and high daily usage, but it always will be free for small startups and developers who are not making money.

And donations(if happens) always go a long way in helping us provide a better service! but for now it is all funded by me and the other Co-Founder.

Thank you for your creation. I hope that it helps users to use this forum as like as BTC hunters. But I found here a few problems for that I can't reach your site properly. Please solve the bug to use for users flexibly.
https://img001.prntscr.com/file/img001/sQpC_zLfSWKe4MDkwPlj6A.png

Sorry for the confusion, the routes have been changed:
Service Routes:

- BTC: https://api.blockread.io/btc

- BCH: https://api.blockread.io/bch

- LTC: https://api.blockread.io/ltc
 
E.g
https://api.blockread.io/btc/network/info

Documentation:

- BTC: https://api.blockread.io/btc/docs

- BCH: https://api.blockread.io/bch/docs

- LTC: https://api.blockread.io/ltc/docs

I will update the main post shortly.

I tried to make some GET requests to some endpoints, and things seem to be working fine but I keep getting a Read timed out error like the last time when using Socket? (spent-address).

The site https://www.blocklead.io is not really a magnet for funds. Lots of info is missing.

Blog i.e. is not there or not clickable.
The site looks to me as if you after funding without bothering much to address concerns an investor could have.
E.G your about us looks as if taken off pixabay, or is your team 30 + developers?
If you want money you need to show faces, real ones, yours.

The site is not done properly IMO due to the missing info it looks off. 

Partially agree but it is about the service and not the landing page! As I recall, we didn't say we are looking for investors(always appreciate donation, though), whenever we do, we would show faces to those people, and to the ones who we would go through a deal, SLA, etc.(we are already in contact with some people who us by the names and the faces)

And No, we are not 30 developers! and we don't mind not having a through "about us" at this stage(would be helpful, I know that), we are in the phase where we are looking for feedbacks regarding the service itself, and the documentation, swaggers, and the "try out" section is a good place for the users to go to. That being said , I am going to write up a proper landing page(when I get some extra time which is rare these days considering how we are involved with the development of the project itself)

P.S
Check the service and let me know what you think(if you have time of course!)

The website's changed where's the api for service route links?

it hasn't since my last announcement!

BTC:
https://api.blockread.io/btc/docs

BCH:
https://api.blockread.io/bch/docs

LTC:
https://api.blockread.io/ltc/docs

Hi guys,
interesting project! Currently for our project, we are using the API of another provider, but in the future maybe we could use yours! Here you can find our project: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5457075.0.

Good luck!!!

/M