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Ethereum: Does the main Bitcoin client blacklist addresses?

Published by Terlumun Aondover on February 5th, 2025.

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Ethereum: Understanding Blacklisting and Bad Messages in Major Bitcoin Clients

When it comes to cryptocurrency transactions, security and efficiency are crucial. Two popular Bitcoin clients, Electrum (for Windows/Mac) and BitWallet (for Linux/Android), use blacklists to filter out invalid or bad messages that can cause issues with the blockchain. In this article, we’ll take a look at what blacklisting in these clients entails, how they work, and best practices for whitelisting specific addresses.

What is Blacklisting?

Blacklisting is a mechanism used by Bitcoin clients to reject transactions that are deemed invalid or suspicious. This helps prevent malicious activity, such as double-spending, phishing, and spamming. The blacklist consists of a list of addresses that send too many bad messages within a certain period of time. These addresses are usually flagged as exhibiting potentially malicious behavior.

Main Bitcoin Client Blacklist

The main Bitcoin client, Electrum on Windows/Mac, uses the following blacklist:

Too Many Bad Messages (TOMEM): This feature blacklists addresses that send more than 100 bad messages in a 2-minute window.

Address Reputation
: Electrum also has an address reputation system, which flags high-activity addresses as suspicious and blacklists them.

BitWallet Blacklist

In contrast, BitWallet uses the following blacklist:

Too Many Bad Messages (TOMEM): Similar to Electrum’s TOMEM feature.

IP Address: BitWallet also has an IP address filtering system, which blocks addresses that send too many bad messages or are flagged as malicious.

Whitelisting Addresses

To whitelist a specific address in your application, you can follow these steps:

Check the blacklist of the client you want to use (Electrum for Ethereum).

Identify the address you want to whitelist.

Connect to your Bitcoin wallet or use the Electrum/BitWallet API to retrieve the address’s blacklist settings.

Sample Code: Adding an Address to the Whitelist

Here is an example of how you can check if an address is blacklisted using the Electrum API on Windows:


import requests





Set the API endpoint and credentials
api_endpoint = "
api_key = "your_api_key"

Get the address to add to the whitelist
address_to_whitelist = "1G8RgqT4yXfjQs3WdZxTPu2P5H8D6M9F"

Set the API request parameters (blacklist parameters)
params = {
"action": "get_blacklist",
"api_key": api_key,
"address": address_to_whitelist
}

Send API request and retrieve response data
response_data = requests.get(api_endpoint, params=params)

Check if the address is blacklisted or not
if response_data.status_code == 200:

The address is whitelisted (TOMEM < 100)
print("Whitelisted:", True)
else:

The address is blacklisted or flagged as malicious
print("Whitelisted:", False)

Conclusion

In conclusion, understanding the blacklisting features of major Bitcoin clients like Electrum and BitWallet can help you develop more robust and secure applications. By following these steps and using the examples provided, you can effectively whitelist specific addresses to prevent sending bogus messages. Always keep in mind that blacklisting is only one aspect of securing your cryptocurrency transactions; Proper verification and authentication are always crucial to maintaining a safe and trustworthy online experience.

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