libbitcoinkernel / rust-bitcoinkernel

Core's validation engine, factored out as a C-ABI library. Two layers:

• libbitcoinkernel - the C header src/kernel/bitcoinkernel.h in the Bitcoin Core tree, plus the bitcoinkernel CMake target.
• bitcoinkernel - safe Rust bindings, over the libbitcoinkernel-sys FFI/build crate. Repo: github.com/sedited/rust-bitcoinkernel (the TheCharlatan/rust-bitcoinkernel URL still redirects there).

Status: experimental (as of September 2026)

The header's own Remarks section in Bitcoin Core v31.1 (July 2026) states the API "is unversioned and not stable yet. Users should expect breaking changes. It is also not yet included in releases of Bitcoin Core." Upstream tracking is bitcoin/bitcoin#27587, "Bitcoin Kernel Library Project Tracking" (open, last updated 31 July 2026).

It is not built by default. BUILD_KERNEL_LIB ("Build experimental bitcoinkernel library") defaults to the value of BUILD_UTIL_CHAINSTATE, which is OFF in v31.1, so you must opt in:

cmake -B build -DBUILD_KERNEL_LIB=ON       # BUILD_KERNEL_TEST follows it
cmake --build build

Treat the library as a moving target and pin an exact commit or crate version.

Why it exists

Core's old libbitcoinconsensus was deprecated in v27.0 and removed entirely in v28.0 (release notes, PR #29648) - src/script/bitcoinconsensus.h is present at tag v27.0 and gone at v28.0. It only ever did isolated script verification. The kernel library is the replacement and is stateful: it owns a chainstate, so it can validate whole blocks against real chain context, not just scripts.

Scope

Per the v31.1 header's Purpose section, the C API covers:

• Block and block-header validation against consensus rules.
• Iterating the block index / traversing the chain.
• Reading block and undo data from disk.
• Script verification.

No P2P, no wallet, no RPC server, no mempool acceptance. A context is passed to state-rich calls; a built-in static context covers the "context-free" operations (SHA256 implementation self-check, RNG init, secp256k1 static context self-check), so no explicit init is required for those.

Install (Rust)

# latest on crates.io as of September 2026
[dependencies]
bitcoinkernel = "0.3"        # 0.3.0, 26 August 2026; MSRV 1.71.0

libbitcoinkernel-sys (0.4.0, 26 August 2026) is pulled in transitively - depend on it directly only for raw FFI. All-time downloads as of September 2026: ~44.6k for bitcoinkernel, ~47.6k for libbitcoinkernel-sys.

Build requirements

libbitcoinkernel-sys vendors Bitcoin Core as a git subtree at libbitcoinkernel-sys/bitcoin and statically compiles the kernel library as part of cargo build. That means the host needs Core's own build dependencies - cmake, a working C and C++ toolchain, and an installation of Boost. First builds are slow; budget for them in CI.

Since bitcoinkernel 0.2.1 / libbitcoinkernel-sys 0.3.0 (both 20 May 2026) the sys crate ships checked-in bindings instead of generating them with bindgen, which upstream notes removes some build-time dependencies.

Users on rustc older than 1.77 should build with --locked (Cargo-minimal.lock / Cargo-recent.lock pin the two extremes). Android cross-compilation is available through the repo's Nix flake (nix build .#libbitcoinkernel-android-aarch64), targeting API 24+.

Quick examples

Validate a block

use bitcoinkernel::{
    Block, ChainType, ChainstateManager, ContextBuilder, ProcessBlockResult,
};

let context = ContextBuilder::new()
    .chain_type(ChainType::Mainnet)
    .build()?;

let chainman = ChainstateManager::new(&context, "/path/to/data", "/path/to/blocks")?;

let block = Block::new(&block_bytes)?;
match chainman.process_block(&block) {
    ProcessBlockResult::NewBlock => println!("validated and written to disk"),
    ProcessBlockResult::Duplicate => println!("already known (valid)"),
    ProcessBlockResult::Rejected => println!("validation failed"),
}

Verify a script

use bitcoinkernel::{prelude::*, verify, PrecomputedTransactionData, Transaction, VERIFY_ALL};

let spending_tx = Transaction::new(&spending_tx_bytes)?;
let prev_tx = Transaction::new(&prev_tx_bytes)?;
let prev_output = prev_tx.output(0)?;
let tx_data = PrecomputedTransactionData::new(&spending_tx, &[prev_output])?;

let result = verify(
    &prev_output.script_pubkey(),
    Some(prev_output.value()),
    &spending_tx,
    0,                      // input index
    Some(VERIFY_ALL),
    &tx_data,
);

Passing the spent outputs is what enables taproot verification; without them the precomputed data cannot produce a BIP341 sighash.

Crate layout

0.3.0 (August 2026) added context-free Block::check and Transaction::check, witness-stack accessors (TxInExt::witness_stack), a typed ScriptVerificationFlags in place of a bare u32, and ChainParams::new_signet / ContextBuilder::signet for custom signets.

Use cases

• Indexers and explorers in Rust that must agree with Core byte for byte on what is valid.
• Validation tooling - reorg simulators, chain-scanning utilities. The repo's examples/ ships a bare-bones silent payments scanner.
• Fuzzing consensus code from Rust: the repo has block_roundtrip, chainman_process_block and script_verify cargo-fuzz targets.

Common pitfalls

• The API is not stable. The C header is unversioned and Core makes no compatibility promise; the Rust crate has had renames and signature changes at every minor (e.g. 0.3.0 renamed ProcessBlockHeaderResult::Success/Failed to Valid/Invalid and made process_block_header return a Result). Pin exact versions.
• The vendored Core subtree is the real dependency. Two builds of the same crate version against different subtree commits are different consensus engines. Check subtree movement with ./contrib/check_subtree_kernel_commits.sh after a git subtree pull.
• Not a node. No P2P, so nothing feeds the chainstate for you; you supply blocks. No mempool acceptance and no policy RPCs.
• Upgrade past 0.3.0 if you use ChainstateManager::get_block_tree_entry
  • before that release it passed the wrong pointer to the kernel and returned None for every input.
• Bitcoin Core release binaries do not ship the library, so there is no system package to link against; you build it.

See also

• rust-bitcoin/SKILL.md
• corepc/SKILL.md
• secp256k1-c/SKILL.md
• ../../core/indexes/SKILL.md