leather-primary-sources-2026-04-29

Leather primary-source snapshot

Last reviewed: 2026-04-29 UTC

Project status snapshot

• Official site: https://leather.io/
• Developers portal: https://leather.gitbook.io/developers
• Developer intro: https://leather.gitbook.io/developers/overview/introduction.md
• Example Bitcoin method page: https://leather.gitbook.io/developers/bitcoin-methods/sendtransfer
• GitHub org: https://github.com/leather-io

What the official materials say

1) Homepage and product positioning

• URL: https://leather.io/
• Key takeaways:
  • Leather positions itself as a self-custodial wallet for Bitcoin and the broader Bitcoin ecosystem, not only as a narrow browser extension.
  • The homepage explicitly calls out BTC, STX, Ordinals, BRC-20s, swaps, sBTC, stacking, Ledger support, and mobile plus extension surfaces.
  • This already suggests Leather is best viewed as a Bitcoin-and-Stacks access layer rather than just a single wallet client.

2) Developer docs: injected provider as the core integration surface

• URL: https://leather.gitbook.io/developers/overview/introduction.md
• Key takeaways:
  • Leather says it empowers developers to build apps with Bitcoin and Stacks through the Leather browser extension.
  • The extension injects a global LeatherProvider object and exposes a .request() API.
  • The docs say this interface follows the Modern Wallet APIs proposal, which is a meaningful clue that Leather is trying to be a standards-aware wallet integration surface.

3) Documented methods: Bitcoin signing and Stacks contract flows

• URLs:
  • https://leather.gitbook.io/developers/overview/introduction.md
  • https://leather.gitbook.io/developers/bitcoin-methods/sendtransfer
• Key takeaways:
  • The documented general and Bitcoin methods include getAddresses, open, signMessage, sendTransfer, and signPsbt.
  • The developer docs also describe Stacks methods including STX transfer, transaction signing, structured-message signing, contract calls, and contract deployment.
  • The sendTransfer page shows Leather as a real signing-and-broadcast surface rather than a passive connection widget.

4) Typings and Stacks-library integrations

• Source path surfaced by the docs: Typings and Stacks libraries
• Key takeaways:
  • Leather documents TypeScript typings via @leather.io/rpc.
  • It also points developers to @stacks/connect and micro-stacks for Stacks-specific integrations.
  • This makes the project worth cataloging as developer infrastructure, not only a consumer wallet.

5) GitHub organization: code is part of the source of truth

• URL: https://github.com/leather-io
• Key takeaways:
  • The verified GitHub org exposes a public browser-extension repo and a current mono repo, with archived public extension and desktop history.
  • This confirms that the real technical surface spans docs plus public code, which is important because the marketing site alone understates the developer-facing footprint.

Whitepaper / technical-doc status

• No canonical standalone Leather whitepaper or litepaper surfaced in this pass.
• The strongest primary-source corpus is the official site, developer docs, and the verified GitHub organization.
• In practice, the docs and repo footprint are the clearest source of truth for what Leather actually ships.

Research notes

• Best current category for the library: Bitcoin-and-Stacks wallet infrastructure / injected wallet-provider API / self-custodial Bitcoin access layer.
• The key insight is that Leather should be cataloged less as a simple wallet brand and more as a wallet-provider and signing surface for Bitcoin and Stacks apps.
• The combination of consumer wallet UX, public method-level docs, typed provider support, and the GitHub org makes it a useful long-tail wallet-infrastructure entry.