Bitcoin TipBot For Slack

Easily transfer money between team members on your Slack channel.

Features

• With a single message, send and receive Bitcoins
• Every member has his own wallet
• Every tip is a real Bitcoin transaction, recorded on the blockchain
• Self hosted so you are always in control of your coins

TipBot as a Service

If you want to have a TipBot for your Slack team without having to host the bot yourself, You can setup a hosted TipBot (by BlockTrail): https://tipbot.blocktrail.com

How to Run a TipBot

Setup

• Grab a free API key from BlockTrail here
• Add a bot integration to Slack here
  • Make sure you copy the Slack API token

Install

• git clone https://github.com/blocktrail/slack-tipbot
• cd slack-tipbot
• npm install

Run

Change the YOUR_SLACK_TOKEN, YOUR_API_KEY, YOUR_API_SECRET, YOUR_VERY_VERY_SECRET_SECRET in the below snippet to the API key and secret, slack token and some random secret.

DEBUG="tipbot:*" node bot.js \
  --slack-token="YOUR_SLACK_TOKEN" \
  --blocktrail-apikey="YOUR_API_KEY" \
  --blocktrail-apisecret="YOUR_API_SECRET" \
  --secret="YOUR_VERY_VERY_SECRET_SECRET"

You can also use ENV vars instead of arguments:

• TIPBOT_SLACK_TOKEN, TIPBOT_BLOCKTRAIL_APIKEY, TIPBOT_BLOCKTRAIL_APISECRET, TIPBOT_SECRET

You should use something like forever or supervisord to keep it running on a server, but using a screen does the job too xD

You can add --testnet (or ENV var TIPBOT_TESTNET="true") to make the bot run on testnet instead of mainnet (for development or example).

Deploy to Heroku

You can also deploy the bot to heroku in order to maintain under a controlled-server:

git clone [email protected]:blocktrail/slack-tipbot.git
cd slack-tipbot
npm install
heroku create
git push heroku master
heroku scale web=0
heroku scale bot=1
heroku config:set TIPBOT_SLACK_TOKEN='YOUR_SLACK_TOKEN'
heroku config:set TIPBOT_BLOCKTRAIL_APIKEY='YOUR_API_KEY'
heroku config:set TIPBOT_BLOCKTRAIL_APISECRET='YOUR_API_SECRET'
heroku config:set TIPBOT_SECRET='YOUR_VERY_VERY_SECRET_SECRET'

YOUR_VERY_VERY_SECRET_SECRET

The value for YOUR_VERY_VERY_SECRET_SECRET is used to create passwords for the wallets of the users of the tipbot. If someone gets a hold of your API key and secret, then YOUR_VERY_VERY_SECRET_SECRET will serve as an extra security measure, to prevent the coins from being stolen.

Usage

You can control / communicate with the tipbot by sending the bot a direct message or mentioning its name in a channel. The tipbot responds to certain 'trigger words' in a sentence, so you can wrap the trigger word in a nice looking sentence and it will work.

For example, to trigger the help command you can could say hey @tipbot can you help me figure out how tipping works and the help in that sentence will trigger displaying the help information.

Commands / Trigger words

help - ask the bot for help

eg; hey @tipbot can you show me the help info!

balance - ask the bot for your current balance

eg; hey @tipbot can you please tell me my balance

send <value + unit> @someone - tell the bot to send coins to someone

eg; @tipbot please send 0.1 BTC to @bob will send 0.1 BTC to @bob.

the <value + unit> can be 0.1 BTC or 10000000 Satoshi

this command has a few aliases which you can use; give and sent eg; @tipbot can you give @bob 0.1 BTC or @tipbot I'd like you to send @bob 0.1 BTC

receive <value + unit> @someone - tell the bot to request coins from someone

eg; @tipbot I want to receive 0.1 BTC from @bob will request 0.1 BTC from @bob.

after you've requested coins from someone that person will be asked if that is OK, replying with yes, ok or sure will make the transaction happen.

the <value + unit> can be 0.1 BTC or 10000000 Satoshi

this command has a few aliases which you can use; ask, demand, deserve, send me, give me, gimme and owes me eg; @tipbot I demand 0.1 BTC from @bob for making such a cool bot or @tipbot @bob please gimme 0.1 BTC for lunch

deposit - ask the bot for a deposit address

eg; @tipbot I'd like to deposit some BTC

withdraw - tell the bot you want to withdraw to an address

eg; @tipbot I want to withdraw 0.5 BTC to 1dice8EMZmqKvrGE4Qc9bUFf9PX3xaYDp

after you've requested the withdraw the bot will confirm with you if it's OK, replying with yes, ok or sure will make the transaction happen.

Channels

By default the tipbot joins the default #general channel, you can invite him into other channels just like you invite normal users into channels.

Security / Privacy

The tipbot is in full control of the coins (BlockTrail can't access the coins).

When you invite the tipbot into a channel it can see all the messages in the channel, keep this in mind if the tipbot is hosted by that one intern that has left your company for a competitor ;-)

Features ToDo

• withdraw EVERYTHING
• transaction history
• better way of dealing with errors
• add option for users to set a custom password (would require them to give the password or a browser extension to sign transactions)
• think of a way to deal with deleted users with BTC balance
• respond to being the receiver of the action
• use the Trigger class for all triggers, not just temporary ones