Bitcoin Clients
To send and receive Bitcoins you will need both a ‘wallet’ and a ‘client’ to process your transactions.
A Bitcoin client is the technical interface which handles the communication between your wallet and the Bitcoin network. The client uses information stored in your wallet to send Bitcoins to other people or companies and to update your wallet with incoming receipts. It may also gather information regarding the state of the network and syndicate events to peer clients.
The wallet, on the other hand, stores the information and data required to send or receive Bitcoins.
In theory a wallet can be designed to work with any Bitcoin client to process your transactions but, in reality, most of the wallets currently available use their own clients.
3 Examples of Bitcoin Clients
- Bitcoin Core: a direct descendent of the very first Bitcoin Client developed and released by none other than Satoshi Nakamoto himself, herself or their-selves. It is made up of full node software and a bitcoin wallet and is aimed at end-users. Get the latest stable version here.
- Armoury: Aimed at power-users , this client is developed in Python and has its origins in crowdfunding. Has many features not found in other clients. You can manage multiple wallets (both deterministic and watching), print paper wallets and sweep private keys. Latest releases can be found here.
- Bitcoinid: Aimed at programmers and implements bitcoin protocol for Remote Procedural Calls. The JSON interface makes it ideal for integration into other software.
