Bitcoin address webhooks

Q: Which Bitcoin address types are supported?

Any standard mainnet address: legacy (1…), script (3…), native SegWit (bc1q…) and Taproot (bc1p…).

Watch any Bitcoin address and get a signed webhook when it receives or spends BTC, once the transaction is buried under enough blocks to be safe.

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Bitcoin at a glance

What Chainhook waits for on Bitcoin before it sends a webhook.

API value: bitcoin
Block time: About 10 minutes
Confirmations: 6
Time to webhook: About 1 hour
Address format: Legacy 1…, script 3…, SegWit bc1q… or Taproot bc1p…
Token standard: None (UTXO)
Fees: Fee rate in sat/vB, paid by the sender
Explorer: mempool.space

Coins and tokens on Bitcoin

Every coin and token Chainhook detects on Bitcoin, with the contract it watches and its decimals.

Symbol	Name	Contract address	Decimals
BTC	Bitcoin	Native coin	8

What to know about Bitcoin

6 confirmations, about 1 hour

Bitcoin averages one block every 10 minutes. Chainhook waits 6 blocks, the long-standing standard for settled payments, before sending an event.

Unconfirmed transactions are not reported

Mempool transactions can be replaced or dropped, so Chainhook never sends one. Every event is for a transaction that is already 6 blocks deep.

UTXOs, not balances

A Bitcoin transaction spends earlier outputs and creates new ones. Chainhook reports each output paid to your address, and each address that funded the transaction, as separate events.

Push, not polling

Watching Bitcoin addresses yourself means running Bitcoin Core with an index, or polling an explorer API per address and handling blocks that get replaced. Chainhook reads each block, waits 6 confirmations, and posts each matching output or spend to your endpoint.

POST /v1/webhooks

{
  "network": "bitcoin",
  "type": "address",
  "direction": "in",
  "address": "bc1qc43h2nqruw9gkpjvhlclx2pr6r537uv44s6gdg",
  "webhook_url": "https://api.example.com/webhooks/chainhook"
}

Bitcoin questions

Can't find your answer? Contact support.

Which Bitcoin address types are supported?

Any standard mainnet address: legacy (1…), script (3…), native SegWit (bc1q…) and Taproot (bc1p…).

Can I watch an xpub?

Not directly. Create one webhook per address you hand out. Each webhook watches a single address.

Does Chainhook support the Lightning Network?

No. Only on-chain Bitcoin transfers are detected.

Watch your first wallet

Create an account and start with 100 trial detections for 1 month.

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