Build log

01 Consensus identity

The values that make Spearmint a distinct network rather than a Bitcoin clone that talks to Bitcoin nodes.

Genesis texts

• Main: “Spearmint 25/Oct/2025: From code we trust, not fiat we must.”
• Test: “Spearmint Testnet 25/Oct/2025: Trial by code, not fiat.”
• Regtest: “Spearmint Regtest 25/Oct/2025: Proof in code, not paper.”

02 Genesis mining: failure and fix

The automation run — contrib/spearmint/spearmintify.sh, which mines three genesis blocks and patches src/chainparams.cpp — failed. The traceback is recorded here because a build log containing only successes is not evidence of anything.

The error

# while mining genesis
binascii.Error: Odd-length string

Cause: a truncated heredoc had corrupted genesis_pubkey, which must be exactly 130 hex characters. An odd-length string cannot be decoded as bytes, so the miner aborted before producing a block.

The fix

cd ~/spearmint
cat > contrib/spearmint/genesis_miner.py <<'PY'
# clean script written — includes the full 130-hex pubkey
PY
chmod +x contrib/spearmint/genesis_miner.py
bash contrib/spearmint/spearmintify.sh

03 Source build, Bitcoin Core v29.0

Built on an Ubuntu 22.04 VPS with the wallet enabled. bitcoind installed to /usr/local/bin.

# dependencies
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential cmake pkg-config libevent-dev \
  libboost-all-dev libsqlite3-dev

# source
git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git
cd bitcoin
git fetch --tags
git checkout v29.0

# configure and build
cmake -B build
cmake --build build -j"$(nproc)"

# install the daemon
sudo cmake --install build --component bitcoind
ls -l build/bin
./build/bin/bitcoind -version

bitcoin-cli was missing from /usr/local/bin at first, because only the bitcoind component had been installed. The remaining tools were installed separately:

sudo cmake --install build --component bitcoin-cli
sudo cmake --install build --component bitcoin-wallet
sudo cmake --install build --component bitcoin-tx
sudo cmake --install build --component bitcoin-util

04 Fork scaffolding

A fork directory was created to begin renaming and branding work without touching consensus yet.

cd ~
rm -rf spearmint
cp -r bitcoin spearmint
cd spearmint
rm -rf .git
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Spearmint: forked from Bitcoin Core v29.0"

Branding sets the CMake project name and the output binary names, leaving internal targets intact:

# top-level CMakeLists.txt
project(SpearmintCore LANGUAGES C CXX)

# src/CMakeLists.txt — after each add_executable(...)
set_target_properties(bitcoind      PROPERTIES OUTPUT_NAME "spearmintd")
set_target_properties(bitcoin-cli   PROPERTIES OUTPUT_NAME "spearmint-cli")
set_target_properties(bitcoin-wallet PROPERTIES OUTPUT_NAME "spearmint-wallet")
set_target_properties(bitcoin-tx    PROPERTIES OUTPUT_NAME "spearmint-tx")

Rebuilding then produces spearmintd and spearmint-cli in build/bin.

05 Wallet and mining plan

Operational guidance agreed

• Node RPC stays on localhost; miners connect to Stratum, never to the node directly.
• Public downloads ship as signed, reproducible releases after the fork.
• A minimal “get wallet” page will carry verify-before-run instructions.

06 Status and next steps