Sending and receiving payments¶

Payments in Monero desire a bit of explanation even for people experienced with cryptocurrency.

The main difference from coins which use transparent blockchain is that Monero transactions do not disclose sender or recipient’s address, nor they tell what the amount is. This is a great feature that makes Monero stand out, however at the same time it causes difficulties. In the outgoing payments you won’t see the recipient address and, in the incoming ones you won’t see the sender.

For this reason, there are two classes representing those, IncomingPayment and OutgoingPayment. They share most attributes from the parent Payment class but carry only one address, depending on which end of the payment your wallet is. Your end address is present in local_address attribute.

Retrieving payments¶

Each Wallet and Account object has two methods which will return the list of incoming or outgoing payments:

In [4]: wallet.incoming()
Out[4]:
[in: e9a71c01875bec20812f71d155bfabf42024fde3ec82475562b817dcc8cbf8dc @ 1087530 2.120000000000 id=cb248105ea6a9189,
 in: a0b876ebcf7c1d499712d84cedec836f9d50b608bb22d6cb49fd2feae3ffed14 @ 1087606 1.000000000000 id=0166d8da6c0045c51273dd65d6f63734beb8a84e0545a185b2cfd053fced9f5d,
 in: d29264ad317e8fdb55ea04484c00420430c35be7b3fe6dd663f99aebf41a786c @ 1087858 3.140000000000 id=03f6649304ea4cb2,
 in: f349c6badfa7f6e46666db3996b569a05c6ac4e85417551ec208d96f8a37294a @ 1088400 1.000000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 in: bc8b7ef53552c2d4bce713f513418894d0e2c8dcaf72e681e1d4d5a202f1eb62 @ 1088394 8.000000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 in: 5ef7ead6a041101ed326568fbb59c128403cba46076c3f353cd110d969dac808 @ 1087601 7.000000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 in: cc44568337a186c2e1ccc080b43b4ae9db26a07b7afd7edeed60ce2fc4a6477f @ 1087530 10.000000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 in: 41304bbb514d1abdfdb0704bf70f8d2ec4e753c57aa34b6d0525631d79113b87 @ 1088400 1.000000000000 id=1f2510a597bd634bbd130cf21e63b4ad01f4565faf0d3eb21589f496bf28f7f2,
 in: f34b495cec77822a70f829ec8a5a7f1e727128d62e6b1438e9cb7799654d610e @ 1087601 3.000000000000 id=f75ad90e25d71a12,
 in: 5c3ab739346e9d98d38dc7b8d36a4b7b1e4b6a16276946485a69797dbf887cd8 @ 1087530 10.000000000000 id=f75ad90e25d71a12,
 in: 4ea70add5d0c7db33557551b15cd174972fcfc73bf0f6a6b47b7837564b708d3 @ 1087530 4.000000000000 id=f75ad90e25d71a12]

In [5]: wallet.outgoing()
Out[5]:
[out: a8829744952facbfdaab21ca193298edb1fa16f688cd5dbcdff3ed3968155f28 @ 1088411 2.220000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 out: e291fe40c6102a6193c82ac33227c08e5b30a863dba1bc63e13043a25abbb97a @ 1088523 0.123000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 out: 40de45db57eb87eb8395baf5c1dc705602938317d043f463e68ed85b7108f9f3 @ 1088184 1.000000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 out: 2b41226d45edb875634694fccd95f3c174daa5062763eee619ed4475a7b9207a @ 1088184 2.450000000000 id=6cc9350927868849,
 out: 5e8f392a42899294e6b679ddac13cfe1dfe7f034b1e347424218af06c3dfdc85 @ 1088394 1.000000000000 id=6cc9350927868849,
 out: 5d15fef66fe8de715bcbf2c181f97b9932f9f843aef4724f3026fa3cd1082c68 @ 1088521 3.333333333330 id=0000000000000000,
 out: edc7c28e7b07486be48dac0a178f25a3505114267ddaf3e62ab00d9a6e996044 @ 1088394 21.000000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 out: e32cccd7522e760b1c8a571fd08c75e7a1d822874380edc9656f58284eeb2fe5 @ 1088441 0.070000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 out: d09666238129a1e2a71a9b7c6b30564a95baef926556bb658785cb9c38d9b25a @ 1088479 0.210000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 out: 551721b5358b02565d6a9862867e3806b9a2e0d5aa5158d4d30940251d27bbdd @ 1088516 1.111111111000 id=0000000000000000,
 out: 21e7eb651e8a2bc7661975e965ac6b30a6f4033c6a02e96320e41139ad3e307c @ 1088438 0.070000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 out: 34833fef78c7b7c15383a78912344ecfb3ace479d27c4bd6f3e3f136ddc1d6a9 @ 1088538 3.141592653589 id=0000000000000000000000000000000079323846264338327950288419716939]

Filtering payments¶

Retrieving all payments and processing them each time sounds uncomfortable, especially in old wallets which have seen a lot of transfers. To make it easier, you may use filtering on payment queries.

For example, you may ask for payments from a recent period, limiting the blockchain height:

In [1]: wallet.incoming(min_height=1088000)
Out[1]:
[in: f349c6badfa7f6e46666db3996b569a05c6ac4e85417551ec208d96f8a37294a @ 1088400 1.000000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 in: bc8b7ef53552c2d4bce713f513418894d0e2c8dcaf72e681e1d4d5a202f1eb62 @ 1088394 8.000000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 in: 41304bbb514d1abdfdb0704bf70f8d2ec4e753c57aa34b6d0525631d79113b87 @ 1088400 1.000000000000 id=1f2510a597bd634bbd130cf21e63b4ad01f4565faf0d3eb21589f496bf28f7f2]

Or ask for specific payment ID:

In [2]: wallet.incoming(payment_id='f75ad90e25d71a12')
Out[2]:
[in: f34b495cec77822a70f829ec8a5a7f1e727128d62e6b1438e9cb7799654d610e @ 1087601 3.000000000000 id=f75ad90e25d71a12,
 in: 5c3ab739346e9d98d38dc7b8d36a4b7b1e4b6a16276946485a69797dbf887cd8 @ 1087530 10.000000000000 id=f75ad90e25d71a12,
 in: 4ea70add5d0c7db33557551b15cd174972fcfc73bf0f6a6b47b7837564b708d3 @ 1087530 4.000000000000 id=f75ad90e25d71a12]

Or limit by both criteria at the same time:

In [3]: wallet.incoming(payment_id='f75ad90e25d71a12', min_height=1087601)
Out[3]: [in: f34b495cec77822a70f829ec8a5a7f1e727128d62e6b1438e9cb7799654d610e @ 1087601 3.000000000000 id=f75ad90e25d71a12]

You may also filter payments by the address:

In [4]: wallet.incoming(local_address='BhE3cQvB7VF2uuXcpXp28Wbadez6GgjypdRS1F1Mzqn8Advd6q8VfaX8ZoEDobjejrMfpHeNXoX8MjY8q8prW1PEALgr1En')
Out[4]:
[in: 5ef7ead6a041101ed326568fbb59c128403cba46076c3f353cd110d969dac808 @ 1087601 7.000000000000 id=0000000000000000,
 in: 41304bbb514d1abdfdb0704bf70f8d2ec4e753c57aa34b6d0525631d79113b87 @ 1088400 1.000000000000 id=1f2510a597bd634bbd130cf21e63b4ad01f4565faf0d3eb21589f496bf28f7f2,
 in: f34b495cec77822a70f829ec8a5a7f1e727128d62e6b1438e9cb7799654d610e @ 1087601 3.000000000000 id=f75ad90e25d71a12]

The same criteria may be used for filtering outgoing payments.

Note

In outgoing payments the local_address is always set to the account’s main address, making such filtering useless.

Payment and Transaction objects¶

Each of the payments returned by the wallet carries all essential data:

In [5]: incoming = wallet.incoming()

In [6]: incoming[0].amount
Out[6]: Decimal('2.120000000000')

In [7]: incoming[0].local_address
Out[7]: 9tQoHWyZ4yXUgbz9nvMcFZUfDy5hxcdZabQCxmNCUukKYicXegsDL7nQpcUa3A1pF6K3fhq3scsyY88tdB1MqucULcKzWZC

In [8]: incoming[0].payment_id
Out[8]: cb248105ea6a9189

It also has a related Transaction object which offers additional information:

In [9]: incoming[0].transaction.height
Out[9]: 1087530

In [10]: incoming[0].transaction.hash
Out[10]: 'e9a71c01875bec20812f71d155bfabf42024fde3ec82475562b817dcc8cbf8dc'

Having a running instance of the wallet you may always check the number of confirmations for each payment object:

In [11]: wallet.confirmations(incoming[0])
Out[11]: 5132

Mempool: Unconfirmed payments¶

New transactions, before they are mined in the blocks, land in place called mempool. Each network node updates the mempool contents with new transactions coming from their peers, while offering them the transactions they do not have.

Warning

The presence of a transaction in the mempool is an indication that someone has already attempted a payment, but should never be used as a proof the payment has been done. A transaction in mempool might be replaced by another one spending the same funds, it might expire before being included in a block due to competition of other transactions with higher fees. It might also be a result of a sophisticated attack.

With significant amounts you should also wait for a few confirmations to appear. The top of the blockchain sometimes gets replaced by a competing block. It is a popular practice to wait for at least 10 confirmations to appear, which is also the standard in Monero before funds get unlocked and can be used in subsequent transactions.

However, it is possible to query the wallet for transactions in the mempool. You may use them as proofs of payment for less significant amounts where time of acceptance is more important than limiting the risk of a fraud.

By default, the queries check only the blockchain. This behavior can be changed by confirmed and unconfirmed query parameters that accept boolean values:

In [12]: wallet.incoming(unconfirmed=True, confirmed=False)
Out[12]: [in: 21fd4c0b2671bfc32d7c968fdf3cab1001042128d9429d4a26d4f3dc76bcecb8 @ pool 3.141592653589 id=0000000000000000]

In [13]: incoming[0].transaction.height is None
Out[13]: True

In [14]: wallet.confirmations(incoming[0])
Out[14]: 0

You may as well query for both confirmed and unconfirmed transactions using wallet.incoming(unconfirmed=True) (the default value for confirmed is True).

Note

Mempool transactions don’t belong to the blockchain (yet), therefore they have no height. Setting min_height or max_height arguments will always exclude mempool transactions. If unconfirmed is also set to True, a warning will be issued.

Sending payments¶

There are two methods for sending Monero. For a single payment use the transfer method of Wallet or Account object.

It returns a list of resulting transactions. In most cases it will contain only one element, but sometimes, for example when many small inputs are used, it might become necessary to split the payment into multiple transactions.

In [15]: from decimal import Decimal

In [16]: txs = wallet.transfer(
    'BdYguH2fVo3G37o8bKp8RbTRuRsTpvBaUdxeo9fj6LFrE2XqNMYKytvBLXvNtnbmXtDUwrKLcpeH4NCuhFL2cXikDV4Rzq6',
    Decimal('2.54'))

In [17]: txs
Out[17]: [f6e7532322f2cab837e668e7ee7be38f0ca4c0cb8c6cff7aa1cfaaf764735acb]

In [18]: txs[0].height is None
Out[18]: True

In [19]: wallet.confirmations(txs[0])
Out[19]: 0

In [20]: wallet.outgoing(unconfirmed=True, confirmed=False)
Out[20]: [out: f6e7532322f2cab837e668e7ee7be38f0ca4c0cb8c6cff7aa1cfaaf764735acb @ pool 2.540000000000 id=0000000000000000]

When sending multiple payments at once, it is more convenient and cheaper in terms of network fees to use transfer_multiple:

In [25]: txs = wallet.transfer_multiple([
    ('Ba8xvGs5qw1JfiQVJDj8D28NuyL7MuKsB59jtnx2q1ydH4CazTWfJo9iKvTyeYEoYYQ6RT6A1DfoSj1UiwssKfdjUNumu2K', Decimal('0.11')),
    ('BcVT4P2r1Md1DftWBDKHdK38Md6NtFPu4Heof8atNpxx7zbKfhMtRmUUMooU4cJuH4EKXrpke5A77XVbPhekWuiCSTaDFjw', Decimal('1.22')),
    ('Bf2xXxMLdH9gyh35o6LEyKCz6ZsPRmcujBU9rFK81Brd8HmynFj16KFHAYCETU625hY2x7XBH7CvjCHAC6bxQfsjN77Jv7e', Decimal('2.33'))])

In [26]: txs
Out[26]: [2785a1ad7f6d794802ea27a00e679f8c9706be0ec0b78b73d3182c551c6d69d2]

In [28]: wallet.outgoing(unconfirmed=True, confirmed=False)
Out[28]: [out: 2785a1ad7f6d794802ea27a00e679f8c9706be0ec0b78b73d3182c551c6d69d2 @ pool 3.660000000000 id=0000000000000000]

In [29]: txs[0].fee
Out[29]: Decimal('0.006282400000')

The fee is something you might like to verify before sending the transaction to the network. In such case you’d probably be interested in the chapter about interaction with daemon.

There are some additional options you may set when sending transfer, like payment ID, priority, ring size or unlock time. See API reference below for details.

Note

Be aware that transactions sent from another instance of the same wallet will not appear in mempool queries. They will, of course, become visible once mined.

API reference¶

class monero.transaction.IncomingPayment(**kwargs)¶: An incoming payment (one that increases the balance of an Account)

class monero.transaction.OutgoingPayment(**kwargs)¶: An outgoing payment (one that decreases the balance of an Account)

class monero.transaction.Output(**kwargs)¶

A Monero one-time public output (A.K.A stealth address). Identified by stealth_address, or index and amount together, it can contain differing levels of information on an output.