A minimal bitcoin library for MicroPython and Python 3.10+ with a focus on embedded systems.

Should remain minimal to fit in a microcontroller. Also easy to audit.

Examples can be found in examples/ folder.

Documentation: https://embit.rocks/

Support the project: bc1qd4flfrxjctls9ya244u39hd67pcprhvka723gv

Requirements

MicroPython

Requires a custom MicroPython build with extended hashlib module and secp256k1 bindings.

To install copy the content of embit folder to the board. To save some space you can remove files embit/util/ctypes_secp256k1.py and embit/util/pyhashlib.py - they are used only in CPython.

Python 3

To install run pip3 install embit.

To install in development mode (editable) clone and run pip3 install -e . from the root folder.

PyPI artifacts are pure Python and do not bundle prebuilt libsecp256k1 binaries. If a compatible system libsecp256k1 is installed, embit can use the ctypes backend. If no compatible system library is available, embit automatically falls back to the pure Python implementation. ctypes library discovery order is:

1. secp256k1/secp256k1-zkp/.libs (repo-local build outputs)
2. system loader (libsecp256k1)
3. system loader (secp256k1)
4. src/embit/util/prebuilt/* (compatibility-only path; no binaries are shipped in package artifacts)

To build and install libsecp256k1 locally, see: Building secp256k1 for embit.

Using non-English BIP39 wordlists

BIP39 defines wordlists for:

• English
• Japanese
• Korean
• Spanish
• Chinese (Simplified)
• Chinese (Traditional)
• French
• Italian
• Czech
• Portuguese

embit assumes English and does not include the other wordlists in order to keep this as slim as possible.

However, you can override this default by providing an alternate wordlist to any of the mnemonic-handling methods:

spanish_wordlist = [
    "ábaco",
    "abdomen",
    "abeja",
    "abierto",
    "abogado",
    "abono",
    "aborto",
    "abrazo",
    "abrir",
    "abuelo",
    ...
]

mnemonic_is_valid(mnemonic, wordlist=spanish_wordlist)
mnemonic_to_seed(mnemonic, wordlist=spanish_wordlist)
mnemonic_to_bytes(mnemonic, wordlist=spanish_wordlist)
mnemonic_from_bytes(bytes_data, wordlist=spanish_wordlist)

Development

Install in developer mode with dev dependencies:

pip install -e .[dev]

Install pre-commit hook:

pre-commit install

Run tests with desktop python:

pytest

Run tests with micropython:

cd tests
micropython ./run_tests.py

Inspect built package contents (latest wheel and sdist from dist/):

python tools/package_inspect.py

This helper prints selected package metadata (Name, Version, Requires-Python, dependencies/extras, project URLs) and full file lists for both artifacts.