What is WalletConnect and how does it work?

WalletConnect is an open network that connects a self-custody crypto wallet to apps, such as exchanges, NFT markets and DeFi tools. You click "Connect Wallet" on a site, pick WalletConnect and scan a QR code with your phone wallet. After that, the app can send requests to your wallet, and you approve or reject each one there.

What is WalletConnect used for?

Its main job is letting a mobile wallet use apps that run on a desktop browser, or in another app on the same phone. As of October 2026, WalletConnect's documentation says the network powers more than 700 wallets and more than 80,000 apps. Its November 2025 payments post listed Ledger, Robinhood, Fireblocks, Blockchain.com, OKX, Binance Wallet and Gemini Wallet among the wallets that have built it in.

The company behind the original protocol, WalletConnect Inc., renamed itself Reown in 2024 and sells developer kits such as AppKit and WalletKit. The WalletConnect Foundation says the WalletConnect Network now runs independently of Reown, so both names appear in developer pages.

How does WalletConnect work?

Scanning the QR code creates an encrypted pairing between the app and the wallet. Messages then pass through relay servers. WalletConnect says the pairing is end-to-end encrypted, and that a message waits in a mailbox if the wallet is offline until it reconnects.

The app never gets your keys. It can only ask. When it wants a transaction sent or a message signed, the request appears in your wallet, which shows the details for you to accept or decline. Signing a message can carry as much weight as sending a payment, so the prompt is the part to read.

In Trust Wallet, for example, you open the scanner at the top right of the home screen, scan the site's code and approve the connection. Trust Wallet says active sessions are listed under Settings, in the WalletConnect section, where they can be ended one at a time or all at once.

Is WalletConnect safe?

The connection itself does not hand over control of funds. The risk is what you approve. A fake site can use WalletConnect just like a real one and then ask for a harmful approval, the trick behind many wallet drainers. WalletConnect offers wallets a Verify API that checks the requesting domain against its registry and threat data from Hexagate, ChainPatrol and Hypernative, and flags known scams.

WalletConnect is a protocol, not a standalone app you need to download. Fake "WalletConnect" apps have appeared in app stores, as our guide to fake wallet apps describes.

What is the WalletConnect token WCT and WalletConnect Pay?

The WalletConnect Foundation launched WCT in September 2024. It describes the token's roles as staking, rewards for keeping the network running, and governance and fee decisions that may come later. WCT started on Optimism, then expanded to Ethereum and to Solana in May 2025, according to The Block, and to Base in September 2025.

WalletConnect Pay, announced in November 2025, lets shoppers pay merchants in stablecoins from their existing wallet by scanning a QR code or tapping. The first named point-of-sale partner was dtcpay in Singapore.