Chapter 2: Integrated Wallet

Before deploying the contract, we need to connect a wallet first. We use Sensilet, a MetaMask-like wallet.

After installing the Sensilet wallet, click the settings button in the upper right corner to switch to testnet. Then copy your wallet address and go to our faucet to fund it.

Signer and Provider

When a user wants to sends a transaction onto the chain, our dApp would prompt the user to “sign” the transaction using their private key and be authorized to perform certain actions. The Signer interface is an abstraction of the entity controlling the private key. A simple signer would be a single private key, while a complex signer is a wallet.

A Provider is an abstraction for a Bitcoin node that you connect with when you need to interact with the blockchain, e.g., to broadcast a transaction. Whatsonchain is an example, providing access to the blockchain.

Connect to Sensilet

After clicking the Connect Sensilet button, we initialize a SensiletSigner and save it. We call requestAuth() to request to connect to the wallet. If the request is approved by the user, we now have full access to the wallet. We can, for example, call getDefaultPubKey() to get its public key.

const sensiletLogin = async () => {
    try {
      const provider = new DefaultProvider();
      const signer = new SensiletSigner(provider);

      signerRef.current = signer;
      
      const { isAuthenticated, error } = await signer.requestAuth()
      if (!isAuthenticated) {
        throw new Error(error)
      }

      setConnected(true);

      const alicPubkey = await signer.getDefaultPubKey();
      setAlicePubkey(toHex(alicPubkey))

      // Prompt user to switch accounts

    } catch (error) {
      console.error("sensiletLogin failed", error);
      alert("sensiletLogin failed")
    }
};

We can also call getBalance() to get its balance:

signer.getBalance().then(balance => 
  // UTXOs belonging to transactions in the mempool are unconfirmed
  setAliceBalance(balance.confirmed + balance.unconfirmed)
);

If a wallet is connected, its balance is displayed. Otherwise we show the connect button.

{
  isConnected ?
    <label>Balance: {alicebalance} <span> (satoshis)</span></label>
    :
    <button
      className="pure-button button-large sensilet"
      onClick={sensiletLogin}
    >
      Connect Sensilet
    </button>
}

connect wallet

Put it to the test

Call requestAuth() to request to connect to the wallet.