Bitcoin Design Community announces 18 initiatives for 2026Bitcoin Design Community announces 18 initiatives for 2026

The Bitcoin Design Community does some great work. If you've never taken the time to visit their design guide, you definitely should. They've thought through so many of the design hurdles you might encounter when working on a Bitcoin-related product.

In 2026, it looks like they're really expanding their efforts to tackle a whole bunch of challenges in Bitcoin. Many of these do not yet have a champion or volunteers working on them. So if you've wanted to take on a passion project or to do something to demonstrate your chops or just want to contribute to Bitcoin in some way that isn't necessarily software engineering, you should check these out!

1. Reference Wallet1. Reference Wallet

The Design Community should have high fidelity designs for a mobile bitcoin wallet that adheres to all of the best practice guidance in the Guide. And we should find, and partner with, a team to build it out. We all want the amazing bitcoin experience without compromise, so let’s show the world what that looks like. Let’s get millions to use it. Let’s set a new aspirational bar for wallet UX.

2. Design Guide Refresh2. Design Guide Refresh

The Bitcoin Design Guide is a substantial and detailed resource. Let’s simplify the content & navigation to make it easier for builders to get their questions answered. Through user interviews, we’ll discover pain points to inform the way forward. Let’s get more people visiting the Guide, using the Guide and deriving value from the Guide. The Guide should become an essential destination for anyone building on bitcoin.

3. Bitcoin Builder Kit3. Bitcoin Builder Kit

Let’s make it easier for builders to build with actual code examples and components. We need to embrace the way AI is changing how the world designs and builds, so let’s empower vibe coders to help them bring to life great bitcoin UX with a few prompts.

4. Bring Design to the Protocol4. Bring Design to the Protocol

The Design Community can wield Design to help bitcoin devs and researchers advance their proposals for improving the bitcoin protocol, and related protocols (BIPs, BOLTs, BLIPs, NIPs etc). Designers can crystallize user value and bring to life the storytelling around abstract proposals in a way that technical contributors often can not. There is a huge opportunity for designers to insert themselves in the earliest phases of bitcoin R&D work to champion use cases, sell the value proposition and help user-positive changes gain rough consensus.

5. Vibe Coding Central5. Vibe Coding Central

The world has changed—with AI tools anyone can now build anything. And bitcoin (and lightning and related infrastructure) is now easier to use than ever. A massive wave of creative builder energy is about to be unleashed. We in the Design Community can show the way forward through experimentation, prototyping and community-driven exploration. When value can flow instantly and permissionlessly across borders—what might the world build? Let’s find out.

6. Adopting the ₿ Symbol6. Adopting the ₿ Symbol

Embracing the ₿ symbol as bitcoin’s fundamental unit is a user-positive, future-oriented change—especially when thinking about payments use cases and large scale adoption. We should all have interest in ensuring bitcoin doesn’t disappear from quantities. We should simultaneously increase the accessibility of using the ₿ symbol (e.g. in fonts, on keyboards). Our aim with this initiative will be ubiquitous ₿ symbol use throughout the bitcoin ecosystem.

7. Human Bitcoin Addresses7. Human Bitcoin Addresses

BIP-353 represents a better, more interoperable and human-readable addressing scheme for bitcoin. It’s time to drive its adoption throughout the ecosystem. We’ll communicate clear best practices for UX, implementation, naming and usage. The Design Community will champion its adoption across the industry through active advocacy and explore applicability in new applications (like AI agents).

The Design Community should be on the front lines of the messy bitcoin narrative-shaping and consensus-building conversations that happen all day, and every day on social media. Design can be a strong voice for the user, for consistency, for simplicity—everywhere. A more vibrant presence on X that engages the bitcoin product building community with design topics, advocacy, debate, design crit and more. More podcasts, regular Spaces, more debate—content that builders and influencers will see, amplify and value.

9. Bitcoin vs Stablecoins9. Bitcoin vs Stablecoins

Stablecoins are coming—in a big way. The Design Community can & should lead the charge with research and storytelling work to identify the ways in which bitcoin separates itself as the superior form of “new digital money” for the whole world. Shout the use cases, the unique value, why the world should care.

10. Celebrate Design Craft10. Celebrate Design Craft

Let’s celebrate the best of bitcoin design. We should shine the spotlight on teams and products that are putting exceptional bitcoin design craft, design thinking into the world. Such a real-world showcase will become the reference points to which builders across the ecosystem should aspire. We can bring a new level of design culture to bitcoin writ large.

11. Consistency Across L2s11. Consistency Across L2s

As new “Layer 2s” proliferate, the Design Community should be the voice of simplicity and consistency. The voice for bitcoin. Let’s resist the temptation to bring L2 brands and L2 language into UIs wherever possible. Let’s have the technology disappear. Yet, let’s make sure trust assumptions and risks are clear, and well-understood. It may take some new language, some new metaphors. Let’s explore the best way to keep bitcoin simple, consistent and interoperable even as the complexity of the entire system continues to grow.

12. Humans of Bitcoin12. Humans of Bitcoin

Let’s document real user stories from around the world that show the tangible ways in which bitcoin is improving human lives. We can build a digestible, searchable, useful and inspiring resource that showcases the positive uses. Such a “user story bank” can help dispel counternarratives, can be a valuable source of information for media and can be a source of inspiration for brand work.

13. A More Responsive Community13. A More Responsive Community

We want to improve how responsive the Design Community is to the wider bitcoin community. Let’s create a culture of “customer service” to serve the needs of the industry. We can make it fast and easy for anyone to ask and answer questions. We can increase the ways in which industry designers engage with us. We can help people get started, get contributing, get building more quickly. Let’s explore new tools, new processes, new ways of working. The open community is here to help.

14. Inheritance14. Inheritance

Let’s communicate best practices for inheritance planning and work with existing providers on interoperability. This should include best practices for FROST/Taproot and Private Collaborative Custody. All savings wallets should implement inheritance best practice—as bitcoin must be designed to span generations.

15. Multi-party Self Custody15. Multi-party Self Custody

Let’s design simple UX and workflows for multi-party self custody. We can explore examples ranging from small non-profits to small businesses to strategic reserves for nation states. The UX will need to consider maximizing coin security, maximizing personal safety, minimizing fraud as well as considering transparency and the transfer of power. Important work!

16. Grounding Quantum Risk16. Grounding Quantum Risk

The risk and realities around quantum risk in bitcoin are currently poorly understood by mainstream users and investors—particularly in the face of self-interested parties hyping quantum technology. How likely is it that a quantum computer will break bitcoin cryptography? What happens if it does? Can bitcoin be made safe? All of these questions have good answers, and answers are available, but we think we can use design to tell the story to a broad audience to contextualize the risk around a quantum break and how bitcoin can, and will continue.

17. Branding17. Branding

Let’s create brand campaigns and other marketing initiatives that target various constituencies within bitcoin with laser-focused messaging and compelling story-telling. Let’s reframe the narrative. Let’s get a bit crazy. We can lean into experimental and artistic ideas that point the way forward for the industry, and the world. Our assets and creative direction can equip and inspire builders, users, companies and all of the other brands we hope the community undertakes. We can target merchants, savers, spenders, policymakers, designers and the population at large with bespoke campaigns, assets and messages that will, hopefully finally, break through.

18. Making Privacy Permeate18. Making Privacy Permeate

Privacy is no longer optional; it’s rapidly becoming existential for bitcoin users and the ecosystem’s future. Recent alarming trends enabled by privacy failures – physical attacks stemming from privacy leaks and the legal persecution of privacy projects like Samourai, illustrate the critical moment we’re in. There is so much work to be done to make privacy permeate throughout the ecosystem: to achieve usable privacy in everyday bitcoin products, to spur mainstream adoption of privacy features, and cultivate the mainstream awareness needed to protect developers and users.