mempool

a mempool visualizer and explorer for Bitcoin

Mempool V1 vs Mempool V2

Mempool V1 features basic mempool visualization, fee estimation, and transaction tracking and can run directly off a Bitcoin Core full node on a Raspberry Pi.

Mempool V2 is the fully featured explorer running on mempool.space, but it requires a fully synced electrs backend running on powerful server hardware. Guide to install Mempool V2

Mempool V1 using Docker (easy)

Install from Docker Hub, passing your Bitcoin Core RPC credentials as environment variables:

docker pull mempool/mempool:v1.0
docker create -p 80:80 -e BITCOIN_NODE_HOST=192.168.1.102 -e BITCOIN_NODE_USER=foo -e BITCOIN_NODE_PASS=bar --name mempool mempool/mempool:v1.0
docker start mempool
docker logs mempool

You should see mempool starting up, which takes over an hour (needs 8 blocks). When it's ready, visit http://127.0.0.1/ to see your mempool.

Mempool V1 not using Docker (advanced)

Dependencies

• Bitcoin (full node required, no pruning, txindex=1)
• NodeJS (official stable LTS)
• MySQL or MariaDB (default config)
• Nginx (use supplied nginx.conf)

Checking out release tag

  git clone https://github.com/mempool/mempool
  cd mempool
  latestrelease=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/mempool/mempool/releases/latest|grep tag_name|head -1|cut -d '"' -f4)
  git checkout $latestrelease

Bitcoin Core (bitcoind)

Enable RPC and txindex in bitcoin.conf

  rpcuser=mempool
  rpcpassword=71b61986da5b03a5694d7c7d5165ece5
  txindex=1

NodeJS

Install dependencies and build code:

  # Install TypeScript Globally
  npm install -g typescript

  # Frontend
  cd frontend
  npm install
  npm run build

  # Backend
  cd ../backend/
  npm install
  npm run build

Mempool Configuration

In the backend folder, make a copy of the sample config and modify it to fit your settings.

  cp mempool-config.sample.json mempool-config.json

Edit mempool-config.json to add your Bitcoin Core node RPC credentials:

  "BITCOIN_NODE_HOST": "192.168.1.5",
  "BITCOIN_NODE_PORT": 8332,
  "BITCOIN_NODE_USER": "mempool",
  "BITCOIN_NODE_PASS": "71b61986da5b03a5694d7c7d5165ece5",

MySQL

Install MariaDB:

  # Linux
  apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

  # macOS
  brew install mariadb
  brew services start mariadb

Create database and grant privileges:

  MariaDB [(none)]> drop database mempool;
  Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

  MariaDB [(none)]> create database mempool;
  Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

  MariaDB [(none)]> grant all privileges on mempool.* to 'mempool' identified by 'mempool';
  Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

From the root folder, initialize database structure:

  mysql -u mempool -p mempool < mariadb-structure.sql

Running (Backend)

Create an initial empty cache and start the app:

  touch cache.json
  npm run start # node dist/index.js

After starting you should see:

  Server started on port 8999 :)
  New block found (#586498)! 0 of 1986 found in mempool. 1985 not found.
  New block found (#586499)! 0 of 1094 found in mempool. 1093 not found.
  New block found (#586500)! 0 of 2735 found in mempool. 2734 not found.
  New block found (#586501)! 0 of 2675 found in mempool. 2674 not found.
  New block found (#586502)! 0 of 975 found in mempool. 974 not found.
  New block found (#586503)! 0 of 2130 found in mempool. 2129 not found.
  New block found (#586504)! 0 of 2770 found in mempool. 2769 not found.
  New block found (#586505)! 0 of 2759 found in mempool. 2758 not found.
  Updating mempool
  Calculated fee for transaction 1 / 3257
  Calculated fee for transaction 2 / 3257
  Calculated fee for transaction 3 / 3257
  Calculated fee for transaction 4 / 3257
  Calculated fee for transaction 5 / 3257
  Calculated fee for transaction 6 / 3257
  Calculated fee for transaction 7 / 3257
  Calculated fee for transaction 8 / 3257
  Calculated fee for transaction 9 / 3257

You need to wait for at least 8 blocks to be mined, so please wait ~80 minutes. The backend also needs to index transactions, calculate fees, etc. When it's ready you will see output like this:

  Mempool updated in 0.189 seconds
  Updating mempool
  Mempool updated in 0.096 seconds
  Updating mempool
  Mempool updated in 0.099 seconds
  Updating mempool
  Calculated fee for transaction 1 / 10
  Calculated fee for transaction 2 / 10
  Calculated fee for transaction 3 / 10
  Calculated fee for transaction 4 / 10
  Calculated fee for transaction 5 / 10
  Calculated fee for transaction 6 / 10
  Calculated fee for transaction 7 / 10
  Calculated fee for transaction 8 / 10
  Calculated fee for transaction 9 / 10
  Calculated fee for transaction 10 / 10
  Mempool updated in 0.243 seconds
  Updating mempool

nginx + CertBot (LetsEncrypt)

Setup nginx using the supplied nginx.conf

  # install nginx and certbot
  apt-get install -y nginx python-certbot-nginx

  # replace example.com with your domain name
  certbot --nginx -d example.com

  # install the mempool configuration for nginx
  cp nginx.conf /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

  # edit the installed nginx.conf, and replace all
  # instances of example.com with your domain name

Make sure you can access https:/// in browser before proceeding

Running (Frontend)

Build the frontend static HTML/CSS/JS, rsync the output into nginx folder:

  cd frontend/
  npm run build
  sudo rsync -av --delete dist/mempool/ /var/www/html/

Optional frontend configuration

In the frontend folder, make a copy of the sample config and modify it to fit your settings.

  cp mempool-frontend-config.sample.json mempool-frontend-config.json

Try It Out

If everything went okay you should see the beautiful mempool 😁

If you get stuck on "loading blocks", this means the websocket can't connect. Check your nginx proxy setup, firewalls, etc. and open an issue if you need help.