Hennadii Stepanov a9baf19172
Merge bitcoin/bitcoin#34789: doc: update build guides pre v31
6b20ad84e0a66c48976a599a7cc5b9b19cd49fab doc: update build guides pre v31 (fanquake)

Pull request description:

  We are testing on FreeBSD 15 (nightly) and macOS 26 (CI).

ACKs for top commit:
  maflcko:
    lgtm ACK 6b20ad84e0a66c48976a599a7cc5b9b19cd49fab
  hebasto:
    ACK 6b20ad84e0a66c48976a599a7cc5b9b19cd49fab.

Tree-SHA512: c97528d8db762f44d6ada064162264eedf67b154de0f357b915b14d4260b6802b099d19156ab5747120e4c632b21a8c8de92e2a903bbfcfcf4376549694eef1f
2026-03-10 15:10:13 +00:00
..
2025-12-27 22:33:23 +01:00
2025-11-15 13:11:49 +00:00
2026-03-10 14:13:44 +00:00
2026-02-27 17:15:07 +01:00
2026-02-27 17:15:07 +01:00
2026-02-27 17:15:07 +01:00
2025-06-30 06:24:00 -04:00
2025-05-06 12:21:32 -07:00
2026-02-13 10:52:28 +01:00
2026-02-05 10:52:58 +00:00
2025-06-19 11:22:14 +01:00
2025-07-26 13:58:01 +03:00

Bitcoin Core

Setup

Bitcoin Core is the original Bitcoin client and it builds the backbone of the network. It downloads and, by default, stores the entire history of Bitcoin transactions, which requires several hundred gigabytes or more of disk space. Depending on the speed of your computer and network connection, the synchronization process can take anywhere from a few hours to several days or more.

To download Bitcoin Core, visit bitcoincore.org.

Running

The following are some helpful notes on how to run Bitcoin Core on your native platform.

Unix

Unpack the files into a directory and run:

  • bin/bitcoin-qt (GUI) or
  • bin/bitcoind (headless)
  • bin/bitcoin (wrapper command)

The bitcoin command supports subcommands like bitcoin gui, bitcoin node, and bitcoin rpc exposing different functionality. Subcommands can be listed with bitcoin help.

Windows

Unpack the files into a directory, and then run bitcoin-qt.exe.

macOS

Drag Bitcoin Core to your applications folder, and then run Bitcoin Core.

Need Help?

Building

The following are developer notes on how to build Bitcoin Core on your native platform. They are not complete guides, but include notes on the necessary libraries, compile flags, etc.

Development

The Bitcoin repo's root README contains relevant information on the development process and automated testing.

Resources

Miscellaneous

License

Distributed under the MIT software license.