getchaintips

getchaintips lists every block-tree tip the Bitcoin node currently knows about — not just the active chain that carries BTC value, but also stale branches it once considered, headers-only branches it has not fully downloaded, and tips it marked invalid. Each entry reports its height, hash, branchlen (how far the branch diverges from the main chain), and a status. Because Bitcoin resolves competing Proof-of-Work branches by most cumulative work, this method is how you observe forks and reorgs from outside. Call it at https://bitcoin.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY with no parameters.

Use cases

• Detect reorgs and competing branches the node has seen by watching for new tips appearing.
• Monitor for stale or valid-fork tips that can signal a network fork or a deep reorg in progress.
• Find the single active tip alongside any side branches to assess how settled the chain is.

Parameters

Diese Methode erwartet keine Parameter. Übergib ein leeres Array [].

Response

Example request

1curl https://bitcoin.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
4  -d '{
5  "jsonrpc": "1.0",
6  "id": "therpc",
7  "method": "getchaintips",
8  "params": []
9}'

Errors & troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• Exactly one tip carries status: active; every other entry is a fork, a headers-only branch, or an invalid branch — do not treat them as confirmed chain.
• The list reflects only what the provider's node has seen, so a different node may report a different set of tips; never treat it as a global view of the Bitcoin network.

Supported networks

• Mainnet
• Testnet

See also

• getblockchaininfo
• getbestblockhash