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Manual Transfer (btcli)

The Forge Get Started flow can move your gas (TAO) and collateral (Alpha) to your mirror for you. If you would rather not connect your Bittensor wallet to the app — or you just prefer the command line — you can do the exact same transfers yourself with btcli.

Everything below targets Bittensor testnet (--network test) and the Forge EVM testnet deployment on chain ID 945.

What you are doing

Forge reads your collateral from a mirror — a Bittensor SS58 address that is controlled by your EVM wallet. To use Forge you move two things to that mirror:

  1. TAO for gas — so the mirror can pay EVM transaction fees.
  2. Alpha stake — the collateral for the market you want to open.

Both are normal native Bittensor transfers. Nothing is bridged.

Before you start

  • Install btcli and confirm it runs: btcli --version.
  • Have the Bittensor coldkey/hotkey wallet that holds your TAO and Alpha available locally.
  • Open the Forge Get Started page and connect your EVM wallet so it can show you your mirror address, the market hotkey, and the subnet (netuid).

Verify your mirror address

Before sending anything, confirm the mirror address Forge shows is really derived from your EVM address — do not trust the screen blindly.

The mirror is deterministic. It is computed as:

coldkey  = blake2b_256("evm:" + your_h160_address_bytes)
mirror   = ss58_encode(coldkey, prefix = 42)

This is the standard Frontier "evm:" account mapping that the Bittensor runtime uses. Because it is deterministic, you can reproduce it independently and check it matches what Forge displays:

  • Follow the official Convert H160 to SS58 tutorial with your own EVM address.
  • Confirm the SS58 it produces is exactly the mirror address shown on the Get Started page.

If the two do not match, stop — do not send funds.

1. Send TAO for gas

Send TAO from your Bittensor wallet to the mirror address. The Forge UI recommends about 1 TAO and treats anything above 0.1 TAO as enough to continue.

btcli wallet transfer \
  --dest <MIRROR_SS58> \
  --amount 1 \
  --network test

If you are not using your default coldkey, add --wallet.name <YOUR_COLDKEY>.

After it confirms, the TAO appears as your mirror's EVM gas balance, and the Get Started page marks EVM gas funded.

2. Move Alpha collateral

Move the market's Alpha to the same mirror. Copy the market hotkey and subnet (netuid) from the Get Started page — they identify the validator and subnet for the market you are opening.

btcli stake transfer \
  --hotkey <MARKET_HOTKEY> \
  --destination <MIRROR_SS58> \
  --netuid <NETUID> \
  --amount <ALPHA_AMOUNT> \
  --network test

If your stake sits under a non-default hotkey, add --wallet.hotkey <YOUR_HOTKEY>.

PlaceholderWhere to find it
<MIRROR_SS58>"Verified mirror destination" on the Get Started page
<MARKET_HOTKEY>"Market hotkey" on the Get Started page
<NETUID>The subnet number shown next to the market name
<ALPHA_AMOUNT>How much Alpha you want to use as collateral

3. Confirm and return to Forge

Check the transfers landed:

btcli wallet balance --network test
btcli stake list --network test

Then return to the Get Started page. It re-reads your on-chain state automatically, marks Market Alpha in mirror, and lets you continue to Open market. From there, supply your Alpha as collateral and borrow TAO as described in Getting Started.

Helpful official references