Ethereum: Get a programmatic notification when an address receives a transaction [duplicate]

Requesting Automated Notifications for Transactions Receiving Bitcoin Addresses

When building an in-house Bitcoin payment system, it is essential to track incoming transactions and send notifications to your web server. In this article, we will look at the best practices for receiving notifications when a transaction is received for a given Bitcoin address.

Current Recommendation: Webhooks with JSON-RPC

The most widely used approach is to use webhooks with JSON-RPC (JavaScript Object Request Protocol). This method allows you to programmatically receive notifications when an event occurs on another server, in this case the Bitcoin network.

Here’s how it works:

Set up a JSON-RPC endpoint: Create a RESTful API on your server that exposes the endpoints needed to receive transactions.

Subscribe to events: Use a library like eth-notify or web3-subscribe to subscribe to specific events, such as new_transaction or balance_changed.

Process notifications

: When an event is triggered, process the notification and update your payment system accordingly.

Benefits of using Webhooks

Using webhooks with JSON-RPC offers several advantages:

Scalability: You can use webhooks to handle a large number of transactions without worrying about bandwidth or queuing.

Flexibility

: You can subscribe to multiple events on different servers and handle them independently.

Security: Webhooks provide an additional layer of security by ensuring that the receiving server is not exposed to spam or abuse.

Example use case:

Let’s say you have a payment system that allows users to send Bitcoin payments. When a user initiates a payment, the server needs to send a notification when a transaction arrives at a specific address.

Here’s an example code snippet using “eth-notify”:


const Web3 = request('web3');
const EthNotify = request('eth-notify');
// Set up a Web3 instance and Ethereum provider
const web3 = new Web3(new Web3.providers.HttpProvider('
const ethNotifyes = new EthNotify();
// Subscribe to Bitcoin network events
web3.eth.getNetworks((error, networks) => {
if (err) {
console.error(err);
return;
}
// Subscribe to the "new_transaction" event on the "mainnet" network
ethNotifies.on('new_transaction', (transactionHash, transaction) => {
const recipient = transaction.from;
console.log(Transaction received for address: ${recipient});
// Update your payment system with the new transaction data
updatePaymentSystem(recipient);
});
});

Conclusion

Receiving programmatic notifications when a Bitcoin address receives a transaction is a reliable and scalable approach to building an in-house Bitcoin payment system. Using webhooks with JSON-RPC, you can handle multiple events independently on different servers and ensure the security of your payment system.

Remember to replace “YOUR_PROJECT_ID” with your actual Infura project ID in the example code snippet above.

Additional Resources

For more information on Web3 and Ethereum notifications, visit: