Developer’s Guide to Building Bitcoin Wallets with Open-Source Frameworks

Wallets are a vital cog in the crypto ecosystem — and for newcomers to the space, often serve as a gateway to understanding how digital assets work.

A dizzying array of wallet providers currently exist, each with its own specific use cases and specialties. While some focus on DeFi, others cater to NFT owners and altcoin devotees.

If you're a developer who is brimming with innovative ideas and plans to address a gap in the market, open-source tools can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Here, we're going to explore how you can build robust wallets using frameworks such as RIF Wallet.

The Importance of Building Secure and User-Friendly Wallets

Recent research revealed some of the biggest pain points that wallet users face, as well as the features they crave the most. This intelligence helps expose the shortcomings of products currently on the market, and potential opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Navigating different blockchains, as well as signing up for a wallet, are key contributors to the steep learning curve newcomers must tackle. Consumers also crave the ability to pay for everyday items with ease, with safeguards in place to prevent them from losing their private keys. Instead of being confronted by a long string of letters and numbers when sending funds to other addresses — which increases the risk of costly mistakes — many prefer to interact with wallets with avatars or human-readable nicknames.

How To Build a Crypto Wallet Using an Open-Source Framework

Developing a crypto wallet is a big responsibility — and security needs to be your number one concern, especially if you're asking users to entrust you with their funds. Thankfully, there's no need to reinvent the wheel when creating new software, as much of the heavy lifting has already been done for you.

The benefit of open-source libraries lies in how you can freely use the vital components that make up a crypto wallet — and then make additional customizations on top. Often, these frameworks have been rigorously tested by an expansive community.

In other cases, a business may be simply looking for a white-label solution where all that needs to be done is adding the branding, meaning a broader cross-section of customers can experience the power of digital assets for themselves.

How To Build a Crypto Wallet With RIF Wallet

RIF Wallet is a new open-source framework that's helping developers and entrepreneurs build Bitcoin-focused crypto wallets that tap into a plethora of applications based on Rootstock, the first and longest-lasting EVM-compatible Bitcoin sidechain.

It's also designed to help fintech firms and neobanks branch out into digital assets as demand continues to grow, with countless consumers in emerging markets looking to shield their savings from inflation.

From remittances to real-world purchases, this infrastructure champions the concept of Everyday DeFi, where the barriers to entry surrounding decentralized finance are dramatically lowered. And staying true to the recently performed research, end users have the freedom to mint human-readable names.

To achieve this, an intuitive interface for new users is a top priority. RIF Wallet offers smart contract flexibility by allowing firms with technical know-how to build upon its open-source code. Teams that lack these skills, or need additional support, can also interact with the Rootstock core development team to bring their desired product to fruition.

Step 1: Set up the environment

RIF Wallet is compatible with Android and iOS alike, and the mobile app has been written using React Native. To start building your own wallet, you'll need to set up React Native on your chosen operating system, whether that's Windows, Mac or Linux. This can be quite a time-consuming process, and you can find further details here.

Step 2: Clone and customize

Once complete, you can clone the repo and then start running the app. The readme file of the rif-wallet repository has the installation instructions, but in a nutshell, you need to:

1. Get the code

   Clone the repo using GIT to your local device:

   
   

git clone [email protected]:rsksmart/rif-wallet.git

2. Install the dependencies

   Install the JavaScript dependencies with yarn:

   
   

yarn

Once this has completed, it will also run a post-install script that will add functionality that is available in the browser but not in node. You can read more about this from the package rn-nodify.

Note that packages such as crypto, browser, stream exist in the browser. However, React Native does not run in the browser, but instead in node, therefore, you’ll need to add these packages.

iOS Dependencies

If you plan to run the app on an iOS Simulator, you will need to install additional dependencies. Remember, you can only run in an iOS Simulator (or device) from a Mac computer.

cd ios
pod install

If you are on a Mac with an M1 chip, there should be no changes to the repo. If you are running an ARM chip, this step may change the POD lock file – this is normal.

Android Dependencies

Android will install the dependencies the first time you run the app so there are no additional steps here.

Step 3: Run

The final step is to run the app in your iOS simulator or Android emulator.

yarn ios
// or
yarn android

The first time you launch the app, it might take a bit of time. There are also ios:local and android:local scripts, but these are for connecting with a local server.

You should now have the app up and running and can start playing around with it.

Three different GitHub repositories make up RIF Wallet — and IOV Labs runs RIF-Wallet-Services so developers can perform necessary tests in a risk-free environment.

RIF Wallet is proud to be open-source — and in time, hope the infrastructure will help demystify the process of making crypto transactions for the masses. RIF Wallet boasts a range of exciting and easy-to-implement features that further enhance the user experience — and step by step, we're making decentralized technology available to all.

Try the first fully modular wallet for smart contracts.