The Bitcoin Developer Guide

The Bitcoin Developer Guide is aimed at helping application developers understand how Bitcoin works as a system. By reading this guide you will learn about both the high-level abstractions that compose Bitcoin, as well as the lower-level data structures that are used in building a bitcoin-enabled application.

This guide will help you answer such questions as :

  • How does bitcoin work ?
  • Do I need a blockchain integration in my application ?
  • What does a blockchain integration look like for my application ?

Who should read this guide ?

  • Application Developers who would like to integrate some aspect of Bitcoin into their application for payments or immutable data storage.
  • Application Architects or Developers tasked with structuring and integrating a back-end blockchain integration.
  • Anyone who would like to deepen their understanding of how bitcoin works as a system.

Prerequisites

The Bitcoin Developer Guide attempts to be as approachable as possible. That being said, the reader is expected and assumed to be fluent in at least one programming language. Some aspects of the writing touch on technical areas which would only really of use to someone with a software development background.