Business-Managed Non-Custodial Bitcoin Wallets (Custody by Business)

Overview

Bitnob provides a managed Bitcoin RPC service that allows businesses to build Bitcoin custodial infrastructure for their users without ceding any control of the private keys.

In this model:

Businesses manage and control all private keys securely on their own infrastructure.

Bitnob provides the Bitcoin node infrastructure: address generation, transaction monitoring, broadcasting, and full blockchain query capabilities.

Bitnob never touches customer funds, cannot access private keys, and only relays blockchain information and transactions .

This allows you to build applications such as:

Bitcoin custodial wallets

Crypto neobanks

Bitcoin exchanges

Internal Bitcoin treasuries

Bitcoin payment processors

Explorers and analytics platforms

Core Concepts

concepts	explanations
Managed Non-Custodial Wallets	You (the business) generate and store private keys. Users have accounts within your app. Bitnob only provides blockchain access.
Bitnob’s Role	Blockchain infrastructure: node connectivity, transaction relaying, address monitoring. Never key custody.
Signing Transactions	All signing operations happen on your backend. You control funds completely.
Supported Address Types	Legacy (P2PKH), Nested SegWit (P2SH), Native SegWit (P2WPKH), Taproot (P2TR).

Primary Capabilities

capability	description
Address Generation	Request new Bitcoin addresses (specify address type).
Transaction Broadcasting	Broadcast signed transactions (single or batch).
Address Monitoring	Set up webhooks to detect inbound transactions.
Balance Queries	Fetch confirmed and pending balances for addresses.
Transaction Queries	Fetch full transaction data from mempool or blockchain.
Fee Estimation	Get dynamic fee suggestions for fast, medium, or economical confirmations.
Explorer and Indexing	Perform full chain queries (blocks, transactions, addresses) if building explorer-style applications.

API Endpoints

action	method	endpoint
Generate new address	POST	/api/noncustodial/bitcoin/address/new
Watch address	POST	/api/noncustodial/bitcoin/address/watch
Watch multiple addresses	POST	/api/noncustodial/bitcoin/address/watch/bulk
Broadcast signed transaction	POST	/api/noncustodial/bitcoin/transaction/broadcast
Broadcast batch transactions	POST	/api/noncustodial/bitcoin/transaction/batch/broadcast
Fetch balance	GET	/api/noncustodial/bitcoin/address/balance
Fetch transaction history	GET	/api/noncustodial/bitcoin/address/transactions
Query transaction by TXID	GET	/api/noncustodial/bitcoin/transaction/{txid}
Label address for business use	POST	/api/noncustodial/bitcoin/address/label
General RPC Queries	POST	/api/noncustodial/bitcoin/rpc

Using Different Address Types

When requesting a new Bitcoin address, you can specify the address type:

address type	description
legacy (P2PKH)	Traditional Bitcoin address (starts with 1...). Higher fees.
p2sh-segwit (Nested SegWit)	Compatibility addresses (starts with 3...).
native-segwit (P2WPKH)	Modern, cheaper transaction fees (starts with bc1q...). Recommended.
taproot (P2TR)	Next-gen privacy, efficiency (starts with bc1p...). Recommended for advanced apps.

Sample Request Body:

JSON Request Body

Webhooks and Monitoring

You can configure:

Global webhook: Receive all incoming transaction events to a single endpoint.

Address-specific webhook: Define a webhook per generated or watched address.

Customizable webhook payloads to fit your internal event structures.

Webhook events include:

Incoming transaction detected

Transaction confirmation updates

Failed transaction broadcast notifications (if configured)

Security and Best Practices

Secure Private Keys: Use HSMs or encrypted databases for key management.

Cold/Hot Wallet Separation: For high-volume businesses, segregate hot wallets (daily operations) from cold wallets (treasury).

Fee Strategy: Use real-time fee estimation APIs before sending large transactions.

Address Rotation: Use a new receiving address per payment for better privacy and easier reconciliation.

Confirmations Policy: Always wait at least 3 confirmations before reflecting deposits in user balances.

Reconciliation Jobs: Set periodic background jobs to query blockchain state to cross-verify webhook events.

Notes on Explorer and Heavy Queries

Since Bitnob provides general Bitcoin RPC access, businesses can:

Fetch raw blocks (getblock, getblockhash)

Fetch mempool data

Query full transaction histories

Build analytics dashboards

Build lightweight explorers

without running their own Bitcoin Core full node infrastructure.

Note

Rate limits and usage quotas will apply depending on your subscription tier.

Example End-to-End Flow

Client App sends a request to the Bitnob API Layer with HMAC-authenticated headers.

Auth & Security verifies credentials and roles.

Depending on the endpoint, the request may route to Wallet Management, the Transactions Engine, or Value-Added Services.

All modules update and retrieve data from the Database & Ledger.

Client App receives a response with transaction details, balances, or confirmation of a completed service.

In the Business-Managed Custody model:

You fully own the custody responsibility.

Bitnob provides you with highly available, highly scalable Bitcoin node access.

You can build any Bitcoin-based financial product without worrying about blockchain ops complexity.