Bitcoin App Development with Reown: Everything you need to know
Bitcoin was the first ever crypto currency. Dubbed “Digital Gold” it was always seen as a store of value; used for long-term holding due to its history of appreciating in value significantly on a long-term scale. For many years—especially after the introduction of more programmable cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Solana—DeFi in the Bitcoin ecosystem was seen as stunted: only really serving exchanges. However, in recent years, the Bitcoin ecosystem has expanded to include much more thanks to the launch of Bitcoin Layer 2 chains, such as Stacks and Rootstock, and DeFi platforms leveraging those layer 2. While Bitcoin was once all about storing value, it’s now a thriving ecosystem full of use-cases spanning far beyond swapping, such as lending, borrowing, yield and more.
That’s why Reown offers a comprehensive toolkit for bitcoin app and platform development, designed to help developers make use of Bitcoin’s growing use-cases, without sacrificing performance or security.
Bitcoin app development: Why build on Bitcoin?
While Bitcoin wasn’t built to handle apps; infrastructure has evolved to make Bitcoin-focused platforms serving its users—the biggest user base in the entire crypto ecosystem. So let’s look at some of the reasons you might want to build on Bitcoin.
Security
As a proof of work network, Bitcoin is one of the most secure and protected networks in existence. While most apps are not built directly on Bitcoin mainnet, layer 2s leverage the network’s security and build on top: offering new use-cases and platforms protected by Bitcoin’s battle-tested infrastructure.
Longevity
As the oldest and most battle-tested networks, building on Bitcoin means building an app to last. With the network launching over 15 years ago; it’s much more battle-tested than any other network yet. After so many years maintaining its prowess as the biggest and most popular network, building on Bitcoin is a smart way to ensure your app has longevity.
Largest and most popular network
Of course, Bitcoin is also the largest and most popular network, meaning you can reach the most users compared to any other. If you’re building an app to scale to the millions, reaching a large and trusted user base is key—and the Bitcoin ecosystem offers both.
Why use Reown for Bitcoin app development?
All the tools you need on the framework of your choice
Using Reown SDK, you can build bitcoin compatible apps from the jump, with a choice of from the most popular frameworks, meaning you don’t need to re-write, re-factor or re-think your code to get going. Simply choose a framework you’re familiar with and start building.
Seamless onboarding
With Reown’s bitcoin app development tools, you can simplify login experiences, supporting top Bitcoin compatible wallets such as Leather, OKX, Phantom and Xverse.
L1 and L2 compatibility
With Reown’s Bitcoin adapter, you can immediately build on Bitcoin mainnet, creating simple apps designed for performance from day one. You could also choose to build on Bitcoin-based Layer 2 chain, Rootstock. This allows you to create more complex apps with additional functionality while serving the Bitcoin community—and even add multi-chain support so EVM, Solana and Bitcoin users can interact with your project or platform.
Security
With Reown, security is not just a feature but a fundamental aspect of Reown’s architecture. The infrastructure has undergone multiple rounds of third-party security reviews, audits, penetration testing, and threat modeling to ensure the highest standards of protection. Security is viewed as a continuously evolving discipline, with regular system audits to identify and address potential vulnerabilities.
https://docs.reown.com/advanced/security/security-information#security-information
Compliance
If you’re building an bitcoin app, you also need to consider compliance. With Reown, you can rest assured that friction is eliminated. With analytics to see exactly where your users are interacting from, you can build the necessary compliance features with data confidence.
Plus, with Travel Rule compliance built in to Reown’s authentication (SIWX), you can ensure compliance from day one. To learn more about how the travel rule affects crypto apps and how Reown enables it for your project by default, check out the full blog here.
Analytics
Reown Analytics lets you learn more about user behavior and app performance to make data driven decisions. While many bitcoin apps either trust external analytics platforms or aim to build DIY solutions, when you build with Reown you get all of the app performance and user data you need to make important iterations for your app’s success.
Reown analytics means you can access data such as the total number of addresses, signatures, swaps, onramps, volume, and even more advanced data such as country distribution, wallet distribution, chains distribution and more.
This is particularly useful for if you enable multichain functionality—such as supporting Stacks and Rootstock on top of your native Bitcoin app, or if you’d like to support other networks too.
To learn more about Reown Analytics check out this blog.
How does Reown’s Bitcoin toolkit work?
Building Bitcoin-Native Apps
Supported Frameworks
The Reown SDK helps you build Bitcoin native apps by providing the @reown/appkit-adapter-bitcoin package, which enables Bitcoin wallet connections and blockchain interactions through a unified API. The SDK offers the following frameworks for Bitcoin-native apps:
- React
- Next.js
- Vue
- JavaScript
- React Native
For React Native specifically, you need to install @reown/appkit-bitcoin-react-native and initialize the BitcoinAdapter.
Bitcoin App Functionalities
Once the SDK is initialized, you’re ready to start building functionality!
Bitcoin Native apps are more limited than layer 2 apps, but the SDK can support everything you’d expect, including wallet connections, transaction signing, balance queries, and message signing.
- sendTransfer - Send Bitcoin transactions
- getAccountAddresses - Retrieve wallet addresses
- signPSBT - Sign Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions
- signMessage - Sign arbitrary messages
Learn more about how to implement Bitcoin functionalities here ->
Supported Bitcoin Wallets
Reown’s Bitcoin integration aims to support connections through WBIPs and the Bitcoin Wallet Standard. However, most wallets have their own proprietary connection interfaces. To address this, we will gradually expand the list of supported wallets. Currently, the following extension wallets are supported:
- Xverse
- OKX
- Leather
- Phantom.
Building Apps on Rootstock
The Reown AppKit SDK supports building applications on Bitcoin sidechain, Rootstock. Since it's included in Reown’s multichain architecture, you can build applications that interact with Rootstock alongside other chains too.
Rootstock is an EVM-compatible Bitcoin sidechain, so you can build Rootstock applications using Reown’s EVM adapters (Wagmi or Ethers). The SDK includes 2 pre-configured Rootstock networks:
- rootstock - Rootstock Mainnet
- rootstockTestnet - Rootstock Testnet
Since Rootstock is an EVM-compatible chain, it unlocks more capabilities for your app past Bitcoin-native apps. In short, they can leverage standard EVM operations (transactions, smart contract interactions, etc.) via the Rootstock network.
Building Apps on Stacks
Stacks, a Bitcoin Layer 2 network, is also supported by AppKit Core. This configuration method exports Stacks networks from the networks package and includes them in the AVAILABLE_NAMESPACES constant. Bear in mind though, Stacks is its own network, and this uses the stacks chain namespace (not eip155 like EVM chains):
- Stacks Mainnet: stacks:1
- Stacks Testnet: stacks:2147483648
To create Stacks applications with Reown, you’ll need AppKit Core (the chain-agnostic adapter) since Stacks is a non-EVM blockchain.
Using Reown for building apps on Stacks allows your app to enable:
- Wallet Connection; Accept connections from your users
- Account Management; retrieve Stacks addresses from connected sessions.
- RPC Method Calls; send RPC requests to the Stacks network using the request() method pattern.
But please note, the full SDK's features are not available via AppKit core. Although Reown authentication is available (SIWX), advanced features such as swaps, onramps, social & email login, pre-built modals and smart accounts are not compatible.
What can you build with Reown’s bitcoin app development toolkit?
Bitcoin Defi apps
While building Bitcoin DeFi apps—such as Decentralized Exchanges, Yield Trading platforms, synthetics protocols and borrowing and lending platforms—was once challenging, now you can build on EVM-compatible Bitcoin L2s like Rootstock. This opens up incredible new use cases; particularly when it comes to Bitcoin Yield. Since 2024, Bitcoin Yield platforms have been growing exponentially, offering new ways for users to interact with the Bitcoin ecosystem past exchanges and marketplaces.
Bitcoin-enabled Governance Platforms
The Bitcoin ecosystem is home to a large and ever-growing user-base. With a focus on decentralization—as the home of the cypherpunks—the Bitcoin ecosystem is desirable for self-governed platforms and projects. To enable governance mechanisms, many Bitcoin-focused platforms use Layer 2s such as Rootstock
For example, Rootstock Collective, a DAO built on the Rootstock network, used Reown to simplify onboarding for its governance platform. This allowed even more users to login with ease to cast votes and make decentralized decisions on proposals for Bitcoin-enabled projects funding Bitcoin focused builders!
How to build Bitcoin compatible blockchain apps with Reown
Building a Bitcoin app with Reown is easy! Simply choose your method—either a Bitcoin-native app or a Bitcoin Layer 2 app. Then choose your framework and get started!
For more details, check out our guide to building bitcoin apps in the Reown Docs →
Reown for Bitcoin apps: Unlocking New Paradigms
With Reown, building any bitcoin app becomes possible, whether it’s a DeFi platform, governance platform, or something completely new. With a comprehensive toolkit, including seamless onboarding, payment, compliance and data solutions, Reown offers all of the features you need to build a successful and competitive bitcoin app.
Ready to build an bitcoin app and scale to the millions?
Get started with Reown and build an app you can be proud of.
