Bitcore 2 is a rewrite of bitcore. It is alpha quality. It will ultimately be merged into upstream bitcore.

Our goals:

1. Support ease-of-use by being internally consistent. It should not be necessary to read the source code of a class or function to know how to use it. I.e., where in old bitcore a "privkey" might be anything from a buffer to a hex string to a key to a private key object, in bitcore 2 "privkey" is the same type of object always and everywhere.

2. Have 100% test coverage so that the library is known to be reliable.

3. Library objects have an interface suitable for use with a command-line interface and API, in particular having toString, fromString, toObject, fromObject methods.

4. All standard features of the bitcoin protocol are implemented and saved in lib/. All BIPs are correctly implemented and saved as BIPxx.js in lib/ (since that is their standard name). Any non-standard features (such as SINs and stealtha addresses) are placed in the lib/expmt/ folder and are accessible at bitcore.expmt. Once they are standardized and given a BIP, they are renamed and placed in lib/.

5. It is always possible to create a new object without using "new".

6. Compatible with browserify (i.e., using require('bitcore/lib/message') should work both in node, and be automatically work in the browser with used in conjunction with browserify).

7. Minimize the use of dependencies so that all code can be easily audited.

8. All instance methods modify the state of the object and return the object. To access the result of an instance method, you must access the object property(s) that it modifies.

Features over bitcore:

• Stealth keys, addresses, message
• Proper handling of reading and writing big varInts
• Browserifiable
• A proper point class
• Better test coverage
• Proper message signing and verification
• npm-shrinkwrap.json ensures npm install works as intended
• byte-for-byte reading/writing scripts