Power your Bitcoin wallet with DLCs
Self-custodial Bitcoin options, in your wallet.
ColdPay is an API service that lets any Bitcoin wallet offer a liquid market for PUT and CALL options, respecting privacy and without taking custody of user funds.
Looking for wallet partners. Let's talk in BTC Prague 2026.
The Problem
Bitcoin options today force a tricky trade-off.
Users pick between custodial convenience and self-custodial friction. Most pick custody, and lose privacy, control, and (sometimes) their account.
Centralized exchanges
Liquid, but at a price.
- Custodial: your keys are theirs
- KYC, geofencing, account closures
- Privacy surrendered by design
- Single point of failure
Peer-to-peer DLCs
Self-custodial, but unusable at scale.
- Users have to find each other
- Liquidity is fragmented across silos
- Taker's "free option" exploits maker
- Each side to build payout curves
DLC-specific wallet apps
Self-custodial, but siloed.
- Requires a dedicated wallet app
- Liquidity limited to each app's users
- Adoption requires to switch wallets
- Every new entrant starts from zero
Primer
What is a Discreet Log Contract?
A self-enforcing Bitcoin contract whose outcome is decided by an oracle’s signature, without ever revealing the contract on-chain.
Self-custodial
Funds stay in a 2-of-2 multisig owned by the two parties. No third party ever holds keys.
Oracle-settled
An oracle attests to the outcome with a Schnorr signature. That signature unlocks the winning payout (and only that one).
Privacy-preserving
On-chain footprint looks like an ordinary multisig. Contract terms, oracle, and outcome stay off-chain.
Recoverable
A pre-signed refund transaction with a locktime is built upfront. If the oracle or coordinator goes silent, either party can broadcast it and recover their collateral.
Our Approach
A coordinator: trustless, but useful.
Sits between the parties. Handles the protocol machinery. Never touches the keys.
Wallet
Maker
ColdPay
Coordinator
Bitcoin network
Funding & settlement
Oracle
Attests to outcome at expiry
Wallet
Taker
Wallet
Maker
ColdPay
Coordinator
Bitcoin network
Funding & settlement
Oracle
Attests to outcome at expiry
Wallet
Taker
Never holds keys. Never signs for users. Never blocks settlement.
How We Fix It
Four pain points. Four answers.
Counterparties can't find each other
ColdPay provides a shared API any wallet can plug into. Every wallet's users reach every other wallet's users.
Liquidity is fragmented across silos
ColdPay maintains one unified order book with concentrated depth across all integrated wallets.
The taker can exploit the 'free option'
ColdPay broadcasts the funding transaction atomically. Both parties commit, or neither does, no exploitable window.
Payout curves are too complex
ColdPay builds the four standard option payouts (PUT/CALL × buy/sell). Wallets just verify and sign.
How It Works
Five steps. Keys never leave the wallet.
1
Order
Maker posts an offer via the wallet. Full collateral reserved locally: no margin, no liquidation risk.
2
Match
ColdPay matches with a taker from any integrated wallet on the same order book.
3
Sign
ColdPay builds the contract. Each side reviews and signs locally, keys never leave.
4
Broadcast
ColdPay validates both signature sets, then broadcasts the funding transaction atomically.
5
Settle
Oracle attests at expiry. Winning party broadcasts the CET. ColdPay can do this for them.
The Product
Four payouts. Every option contract.
PUT and CALL × buy and sell. ColdPay builds the payout curve, generates the CETs, and serves the contract terms to both sides.
CALL option, buyer vs. seller
PUT option, buyer vs. seller
Strike = 100, premium = 10 (illustrative). ColdPay generates the full CET set from these high-level parameters.
Integration
Plug in. Don't reinvent.
Offer Bitcoin option contracts in your wallet by Integrating with our REST API. Minimal new cryptography to write, the wallet signs things it already knows how to sign.
Wallet implements
- Order book / order status UI
- Funding pubkey & UTXO selection
- Local signing of CET adaptor sigs
- Local signing of refund + funding inputs
- Bearer-token auth on coordinator API
ColdPay handles
- Order book matching
- Building Offer / Accept / Sign messages
- Payout curve + full CET set generation
- Validation of adaptor signatures and DLEQs
- Atomic broadcast + settlement pipeline
Trust Model
What ColdPay does (and does not) do.
This is the section your security team will read first. Read it.
DOES
- Build DLC-spec compliant messages
- Propose payout curves (which the wallet must verify)
- Validate parties signatures, broadcast txs
- Watch the oracle and broadcast winning CETs
DOES NOT
- Take custody of user funds
- Sign on behalf of users (no private keys, ever)
- Modify contract terms after the parties have signed
- Operate on margin: both parties post full collateral upfront, no liquidation risk
Why Now
The window is open.
Custodial pressure
Account closures, KYC creep, and geofencing make centralized options exchanges riskier for users every quarter.
Wallets need revenue
Self-custodial wallet teams want differentiation and a sustainable revenue stream beyond fees on simple sends.
DLCs are ready
The protocol is mature, oracles exist, and adaptor signatures are well-understood. The bottleneck is integration, that’s what we solve.
Business Model
A win for everyone in the chain.
The wallet
- New revenue stream via per-trade fees
- Differentiated feature, fast
- No new custody risk to manage
The user
- Bitcoin options without leaving custody
- One unified, liquid order book
- Familiar wallet UX
The platform
- Fee from integrated wallets
- Network effect across all integrators
- Sustained development funding
Status
Where we are today.
A working coordinator implementation, validated end-to-end on Bitcoin regtest.
Built
- –Full Offer / Accept / Sign protocol
- –Order book + matching engine
- –PUT/CALL payout curve generator
- –ECDSA adaptor signatures
- –Settlement pipeline through CET broadcast
- –Documented FastAPI (Swagger / ReDoc)
In progress
- –Background settlement orchestration
- –Production oracle integrations
- –Reference wallet client (SDK)
- –Hardening, observability, audits
Next
- –First wallet pilot integrations
- –Mainnet launch with selected partners
- –Expanded instrument set
FAQ