Alpen is a Bitcoin-native EVM chain built by Alpen Labs. It uses ZK proofs to inherit Bitcoin's security while offering EVM-compatible smart contracts and fast, low-cost transactions. Alpen Testnet is the public test network where developers can experiment with Bitcoin-secured financial applications like lending, borrowing, trading, and stablecoins.

The Alpen API allows interaction with the Alpen network through a set of JSON-RPC methods. Because Alpen is EVM-compatible, its API is familiar to any developer who has worked with Ethereum's JSON-RPC APIs.

Send your first request on Alchemy

Let's use the viem package to create an Alpen Testnet client connected to Alchemy and fetch the latest block number.

npm install --save viem

yarn add viem

Create a client connected to Alchemy

import { createPublicClient, http } from "viem";
import { alpenTestnet } from "viem/chains";
 
const client = createPublicClient({
  chain: alpenTestnet,
  transport: http("https://alpen-testnet.g.alchemy.com/v2/YOUR_ALCHEMY_API_KEY"),
});

Now that you've created a client connected to Alchemy, you can continue with some basics:

Get the latest block number

const blockNumber = await client.getBlockNumber();
console.log("Current block number:", blockNumber);

Get an address balance

const balance = await client.getBalance({ address: "0xab5801a7d398351b8be11c439e05c5b3259aec9b" });
console.log("Balance (BTC):", Number(balance) / 1e18);

Read block data

const block = await client.getBlock({
  blockNumber: blockNumber, // from previous example
});
console.log(block);

Fetch a transaction by hash

const tx = await client.getTransaction({ hash: "0xYOUR_TX_HASH" });
console.log(tx);

Fetch a transaction receipt

const receipt = await client.getTransactionReceipt({
  hash: "0xYOUR_TX_HASH"
});
console.log(receipt);

Alpen APIs

For the full list of Alpen APIs, see the Alpen API Endpoints.