How to Receive Bitcoin

Generate a private key from a random seed value.

$ echo [user entropy] | bx ec-new

dbcd61584666028ac88798bacdc76f4b (seed)
4ce3eb6bd06c224e3c355352a488720efc5ac9fe527a219ad35178c3cf762350 (private key)

Create a Bitcoin address from the private key.

$ bx ec-to-public 4ce3eb6bd06c224e3c355352a488720efc5ac9fe527a219ad35178c3cf762350 | bx ec-to-address

03e208f5403383c77d5832a268c9f71480f6e7bfbdfa44904becacfad66163ea31 (public key)
1JziqzXeBPyHPeAHrG4DCDW4ASXeGGF6p6 (address)

Determine the number of satoshis in 0.001 bitcoins.

$ bx btc-to-satoshi 0.001

100000

Send 0.001 bitcoins (100000 satoshis) to the address using any Bitcoin wallet.

Confirm Receipt of Bitcoin

Look up the balance of the address.

$ bx fetch-balance 1JziqzXeBPyHPeAHrG4DCDW4ASXeGGF6p6

balance
{
    address 1JziqzXeBPyHPeAHrG4DCDW4ASXeGGF6p6
    confirmed 0
    received 100000
    unspent 100000
}

Notice that balance.confirmed shows that the transaction has no confirmations.

View History of Receipt

Look up the history for the address.

$ bx fetch-history 1JziqzXeBPyHPeAHrG4DCDW4ASXeGGF6p6

transfers
{
    transfer
    {
        received
        {
            hash 7c3e880e7c93a7b01506188c36a239f70b561dfa622d0aa0d8f3b7403c94017d
            height 326392
            index 0
        }
        value 100000
    }
}

The value of transfers[0].received.hash should match the transaction identifier shown by your wallet.

Notice that transfers[0].received.height shows that the transaction now has at least one confirmation.

Determine Receipt Confirmation Level

Look up the current blockchain height.

$ bx fetch-height

326525

Using transfers[0].received.height, there are currently 326525 - 326392 = 133 confirmations for the transaction.

View the receive transaction on blockchain.info.

This example is a continued in How to Spend Bitcoin.