If you’re a developer and would like to implement something that interact with the Bitcoin protocol, there is some good news for you. BitPay–one of the most important providers that allow you to integrate the encrypted, virtual currency payments on your website or in your app–launched Bitcore, a set of open source Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) with which you can lean on the Bitcoin network.

Atlanta, Georgia-based Bitcoin processor BitPay’s new open-source beta project will allow app developers to more easily build projects on the Bitcoin network. The JavaScript library is designed to encourage more developers to build software that interfaces directly with the real Bitcoin network. The project is hosted on GitHub and involves the use of Node.js and NPM.

The need for Bitcore

Bitcoin is the powerful peer-to-peer platform for the next generation of financial technology. Bitcoin virtual currency on the Internet can be used in lieu of cash. However, despite being in circulation for five years, there are very few or proprietary or open source tools available in the market.

The decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network allows for highly resilient infrastructure, and the developer community needs reliable, open-source tools to implement Bitcoin apps and services.

For this reason, BitPay introduced Bitcore to reduce the difficulties encountered in the use of Bitcoin–such as lack of tooling and libraries for application integration. Bitcore unchains developers from fallible, centralized APIs, and provides the tools to interact with the real Bitcoin network.

“At BitPay, we believe that developers contemplating new Bitcoin projects should not have to resort to using proprietary APIs hosted on services running closed software,” the company wrote on their blog. “To encourage more developers to build software that interfaces directly with the real bitcoin network, we are launching Bitcore.”

BitPay says they have put some effort into ensuring that it had sufficient capability out of the box to attract developers to start using it. In fact, Bitcore has been in use internally at BitPay for the past year, and a simple block chain explorer project called Insight is already using it to show a convenient, powerful and simple way to read data from the Bitcoin network and build your own services with it. Another is Wally, a digital wallet for storing bitcoins.

How it works

Currently one of the major flaws of the Bitcoin ecology is that it is difficult to use, the tools are complicated and many are not individual applications.

“Developers starting with Bitcore will have to spend less time working on the low level protocol details and can focus on building more user friendly tools and services,” BitPay CTO Stephen Pair tells The Verge. “We hope that this will result in easier to use and more secure Bitcoin software for the average person.”

Bitcore provides a decentralized library with which you can validate the e-mail addresses associated with utilities or manage transactions in bitcoin. Developers can also use it to generate statistics.

Bitcore runs on node, and can be installed via npm. Bitcore developers said the open source library is designed to run on a server on node.js or on a client in a Web browser, and to interact with a trusted bitcoin node or bitcoind instance. Given that the sending and receiving of money could be risky, developers may use the library to add a level of control to their apps, thus directly managing transactions with other tools.

The bitcoin payment processor company BitPay representatives Eric Martindale and Jeff Garzik took to reddit to answers questions, technical details and all other details about Bitcore. BitPay noted that they have several other Bitcore projects already underway, including tools that help you manage key storage, multi-signature workflows, a JavaScript roller for browsers and much more. In one of the responses to a Reddit user, Martindale said that the future version of Bitcore could also be used to develop projects related to escrow services.

However, BitPay says Bitcore development is still in its early stages and “needs some developer love” from outside contributors. “Please use at your own risk, Bitcore is still under heavy development and not quite ready for ‘drop-in’ production use.”

BitPay is on the fast track to improving transactions carried out with bitcoins. In a recent funding round, BitPay has taken $510,000 of outside investment to further expand their electronic processing service that enables merchants to take bitcoins and turn them into local money. With all of the recent Bitcoin attacks, the introduction of Bitcore could be a positive step for developers to build future proof apps that use the Bitcoin protocol.