BitcoinII (BC2) wallet guide

CategoryDocumentationStatusReviewed / PartialLast reviewed2026-09-12

Summary

This page is the starting point for BitcoinII (also written Bitcoin II or Bitcoin-II) wallet documentation. For hardware and external-signer evaluation, use the BitcoinII hardware-wallet integration notes.

MoreBC2 now has direct BitcoinII Core v31.1.0 wallet runtime evidence in addition to source review. The current evidence is strong enough to document several disposable-wallet and PSBT workflows as tested under controlled conditions, but not strong enough to treat every wallet workflow, platform, or third-party wallet as verified.

Current canonical runtime evidence:

BitcoinII Core wallet — current tested scope

Windows v31.1.0 disposable mainnet wallet

A fresh BitcoinII Core v31.1.0 Qt node was launched on Windows against a newly created disposable mainnet data directory. No existing BitcoinII wallet or data directory was opened, copied, rescanned, imported, unlocked, inspected, or spent from.

Observed wallet behavior included:

no wallet present before test creation;
createwallet created a new wallet named morebc2-disposable-v31;
getwalletinfo reported a SQLite descriptor wallet with zero transactions;
the wallet was not automatically loaded after restart;
listwalletdir showed the disposable wallet after restart;
explicit loadwallet succeeded;
the wallet remained zero-transaction and not scanning after reload.

This established basic create/inspect/persist/reload behavior for a fresh Core wallet under the documented Windows test conditions.

Windows v31.1.0 isolated regtest PSBT lifecycle

A separate fresh regtest environment used a new wallet named morebc2-v31-psbt-disposable, zero peers, disabled automatic networking, and loopback-only RPC.

The test exercised:

createwallet;
getwalletinfo;
getnewaddress;
local-only generatetoaddress funding;
getbalances;
walletcreatefundedpsbt;
decodepsbt;
walletprocesspsbt;
finalizepsbt;
decoderawtransaction;
testmempoolaccept;
local-only sendrawtransaction;
getmempoolentry and getmempoolinfo.

The disposable wallet created a funded PSBT, signed it completely, finalized it into a valid transaction, passed local mempool acceptance, and submitted it only to the isolated regtest mempool.

No public BC2 network received the transaction.

Replay protection and wallet signing

BitcoinII Core v31.1.0 activates replay protection on mainnet at height 57750 with fork/domain id:

0x01324342

Release-pinned source shows this domain flowing through wallet, PSBT, raw-transaction, mempool, block-validation, and signature-hash paths.

This has an important practical implication: Bitcoin compatibility alone is not enough to prove BC2 wallet compatibility.

A third-party wallet or external signer can understand BC2’s Bitcoin-like address formats and still fail to produce valid post-activation signatures if it does not implement BC2’s replay-domain-aware signing behavior.

The current source also explicitly rejects post-fork external-signer use where the signer cannot be given replay-domain-aware sighash semantics.

MoreBC2 has not yet runtime-tested a hardware wallet or other external signer against this behavior.

Source-reviewed wallet behavior

MoreBC2 has reviewed wallet startup/lifecycle and major wallet RPC groups in the current codebase, including:

src/wallet/init.cpp
src/wallet/load.h
src/wallet/load.cpp
src/wallet/context.h
src/wallet/context.cpp
src/wallet/wallet.h
src/wallet/rpc/wallet.cpp
src/wallet/rpc/addresses.cpp
src/wallet/rpc/backup.cpp
src/wallet/rpc/spend.cpp
src/wallet/rpc/encrypt.cpp
src/wallet/rpc/coins.cpp
src/wallet/rpc/transactions.cpp

Source review supports documentation of available behavior, but source-observed commands remain distinct from runtime-tested workflows.

Startup and lifecycle behavior observed from source

Wallet support can be compiled into the node.
-disablewallet disables wallet loading and wallet RPC calls.
-wallet=<path> can be used multiple times to load existing wallets at startup.
-walletdir=<dir> sets the wallet directory.
Explicit wallet directories are validated.
Configured wallet databases are verified before loading.
Missing configured wallet paths are warned and skipped.
Wallet startup schedules normal post-initialization processing, periodic flush/compaction, and transaction resend behavior.
Wallet shutdown helpers flush, close, remove, and wait for wallet deletion.

Wallet RPC behavior observed from source

Reviewed RPC behavior includes:

getwalletinfo
listwalletdir
listwallets
loadwallet
unloadwallet
createwallet
setwalletflag
getnewaddress
getrawchangeaddress
setlabel
listaddressgroupings
addmultisigaddress

Some of these now also have runtime coverage as noted above; others remain source-reviewed only.

Backup, restore, import, and recovery

Source review establishes that BitcoinII Core includes wallet backup/import/restore RPCs such as:

backupwallet;
restorewallet;
descriptor import commands;
legacy import commands;
dumpwallet and dumpprivkey for legacy-wallet contexts.

Important boundaries:

legacy import and rescan behavior can be constrained by pruning or unavailable historical blocks;
descriptor import behavior depends on timestamps and scan ranges;
sensitive key-dump/import commands are not appropriate for beginner guidance;
MoreBC2 has not yet completed a direct v31 backup-and-restore test with disposable wallets.

Until that test exists, backup/restore behavior should be described as source-supported, not locally verified end-to-end.

Encryption and unlock behavior

Source review establishes wallet encryption, temporary unlock, credential change, and relock behavior.

MoreBC2 has not yet completed an isolated v31.1.0 runtime test of:

first-time wallet encryption;
temporary signing unlock;
wallet relock;
credential update;
backup-after-encryption workflow.

Do not publish these as verified procedures yet.

Coin, balance, and transaction-history behavior

Source review includes:

getreceivedbyaddress;
getreceivedbylabel;
getbalance;
getbalances;
lockunspent;
listlockunspent;
listunspent;
listtransactions;
listsinceblock;
gettransaction;
abandontransaction;
rescanblockchain;
abortrescan.

getbalances now has bounded runtime coverage in the isolated regtest PSBT test. The broader transaction-history, rescan, abandon, and UTXO-management workflows remain mostly source-reviewed rather than runtime-tested.

Spend and PSBT behavior

Current evidence is strongest here.

The September regtest record demonstrates a complete Core-wallet PSBT flow with:

wallet-selected input;
change handling;
explicit fee rate;
wallet signing;
PSBT finalization;
raw transaction decoding;
mempool acceptance testing;
local-only transaction submission.

That supports documenting BitcoinII Core’s PSBT lifecycle as locally tested partial under the recorded environment.

It does not establish:

public-mainnet broadcast testing;
every script/address type;
fee estimation under live network conditions;
multisig or external signer behavior;
hardware-wallet behavior;
third-party PSBT interoperability.

Defaults and options

Source-reviewed startup-adjacent wallet defaults include:

default address type: BECH32;
default transaction confirmation target: 6 blocks;
default wallet RBF: true;
default wallet broadcast: true;
default wallet disabled: false;
default fallback fee: 0;
default pay transaction fee: 0;
descriptor-wallet default for createwallet unless overridden.

These are source-derived defaults. Runtime testing should remain the basis for user-facing procedural examples where behavior matters operationally.

Third-party wallet status

Current third-party wallet observations belong in Ecosystem wallets, while compatibility interpretation belongs in Wallet compatibility.

Current MoreBC2 evidence does not establish safe transaction/recovery compatibility for:

Genesis Wallet;
the Google Play Bitcoin ii (BC2) Wallet listing;
Bitcoin-II/wallet-bc2;
BlueWallet;
Cake Wallet;
Komodo Wallet;
general-purpose Bitcoin hardware wallets;
external-signing workflows.

Tangem currently exposes BC2 asset information but states that native BitcoinII network support is temporarily unsupported. MoreBC2 therefore does not present Tangem as a currently working native BC2 wallet.

Read-only Electrum server reachability also does not prove wallet compatibility, fee correctness, history correctness, signing correctness, replay-protection support, or broadcast compatibility.

Safe wallet principles

General wallet-safety guidance remains:

obtain software from project-controlled or otherwise clearly identified sources;
verify downloads when a trustworthy checksum/signature path exists;
make backups before exposing meaningful funds to a new setup;
never publish private keys, seed phrases, wallet files, RPC cookies, or credentials;
use small disposable/test balances for unfamiliar workflows;
distinguish source review from runtime-tested behavior;
do not assume Bitcoin-wallet compatibility after v31 replay protection;
test recovery, not just backup creation, before treating a backup process as proven.

Release verification boundary

MoreBC2 has recorded the current v31.1.0 release assets and GitHub-reported digests, and the Windows artifact hash used in the September tests matched the recorded release archive digest.

However, the current release-authentication path still lacks a maintainer-authenticated checksum manifest/trusted signing-key path and reproducible-build proof. The Windows executable observed in testing was not Authenticode-signed.

This means MoreBC2 can document byte-integrity observations without claiming complete publisher authentication.

See BitcoinII Core v31.1.0 release assets and Release verification guide.

Next wallet tests worth doing

The highest-value remaining wallet validation work is:

disposable-wallet backup + restore;
encryption + unlock + relock;
transaction-history and rescan workflows;
Windows GUI receive/send workflow using only disposable/regtest funds;
platform-specific data/wallet directory documentation;
external-signer/hardware-wallet replay-protection testing;
third-party wallet transaction/recovery tests where practical.

No existing user wallet should be used for these tests.

Sources

Verification

Status: Reviewed / Partial
Primary sources checked: BitcoinII Core v31.1.0 source plus the 2026-09-11 Windows node/wallet and isolated PSBT validation records
Notes: BitcoinII Core now has meaningful bounded runtime wallet evidence. Backup/recovery, encryption, broad transaction-history workflows, public-mainnet spending, hardware/external signing, and third-party wallet compatibility remain unverified or incomplete.