Bitcoin simulator

I give beginner blockchain courses a few times a year, mostly for people working in banking. The workshops are two days and cover both theory and hands-on work with Ethereum and Bitcoin. The problem is that the Bitcoin testnet has become hard to use - the tooling is clunky and confusing for beginners.

Bitcoin is still a great way to explain how blockchains work, so I wanted a simpler alternative. I found an existing simulator online but the code was outdated. I ended up building my own over a weekend.

It supports multiple blockchains, which works well for group exercises in a classroom. You can visualize blocks, mine new ones, add transactions and send/receive coins with a built-in wallet. It also handles forks properly - it displays them and invalidates transactions that fall off the longest chain. That last part is usually the hardest concept to explain, and seeing it happen live helps a lot.

Try it at bitcoinsimulator.cowsandbytes.party.