Compare · Hiro

Hiro Ordinals API alternative for Runes and BRC-20 data

Hiro retired its Bitcoin Layer 1 APIs on 9 March 2026 and pointed developers to Xverse. We called them on 2 September 2026: all four answer HTTP 410 Gone, and the migration link inside that error returns 404.

So your build is not misconfigured. Here are the replacements we actually called, ours included.

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REST API · SQL · dashboards · indexed since the 2009 genesis block

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informational on-chain data · not financial advice

REST API · SQL · dashboards, one indexed dataset. Querying the indexed Bitcoin blockchain ...

Hiro remains a strong Stacks company and its Stacks APIs are healthy, but its Bitcoin Layer 1 ordinals, Runes and BRC-20 endpoints are gone. BitcoinDatabase indexes the Bitcoin chain itself and lets you query it by address, balance, history and SQL rather than per inscription.

Side by side

Hiro vs BitcoinDatabase, honestly

A fair look at what each does well. Both are capable tools. Here is where they differ.

What matters	BitcoinDatabase	Hiro
Ordinals endpoints today	Live indexed ordinals, inscriptions, BRC-20 and Runes resources	HTTP 410 Gone since the 9 March 2026 deprecation
Migration link in the error body	Not applicable	Present but broken: the documentation_url returns 404
Stacks APIs	None, we do not cover Stacks at all	Alive and healthy, and this is where Hiro is focused
Query by holder address	Yes, address is a first class key across balances and history	Was supported before deprecation, now unavailable
Full chain history to 2009	Yes, indexed from the genesis block	Bitcoin Indexer retired with the rest of the L1 tooling
Custom SQL over the chain	Yes, on Growth plans and above	No SQL layer, and no L1 endpoints remaining
Free access tier	No free plan, usage-based paid plans only	Hiro Stacks APIs still offer a free tier
Wallet and minting flows	No, we are read-only analytics and never sign or broadcast	Xverse, the recommended successor, does cover minting
Auth model observed	API key on a plan, standard bearer auth	Xverse answers HTTP 402 with a payment challenge per call
Rate limit on a dead endpoint	Not applicable	The 410 still ships ratelimit headers at 20 requests per second
Chain coverage	Bitcoin only, indexed deeply	Stacks first, Bitcoin L1 no longer served
Best for	Analytics, research, compliance and cohort queries	Stacks smart contract and app development

Comparison reflects general, publicly understood positioning. Capabilities change, so check each product for the latest.

Why teams pick BitcoinDatabase

The fully indexed Bitcoin blockchain, queryable by REST, SQL and dashboards

What we called, and exactly what came back

On 2 September 2026 we sent unauthenticated GET requests to four Hiro Layer 1 endpoints: the inscriptions list, the ordinals API root, the Runes etchings list and the BRC-20 token list. Every one returned HTTP 410 Gone in 0.35 to 0.37 seconds with an identical 164 byte JSON body reading error Gone, message This API has been deprecated and is no longer available, plus a documentation_url. HTTP 410 is the correct status here rather than 404, because it tells a client the resource is permanently gone and will not come back, which is a signal well behaved retry logic should stop on. Worth noting: the dead endpoint still returns rate limit headers, ratelimit-limit 20 and x-ratelimit-limit-second 20, so a retry loop is still being counted even though nothing will ever succeed.

The migration link in the error body is broken

This is the part that costs teams an afternoon. The 410 body politely hands you a documentation_url pointing at the ordinals API migration guide. We followed it on 2 September 2026 and it returns HTTP 404, and so does the parent ordinals API documentation page. The Hiro documentation root itself answers 200, so this is not an outage, it is two pages that were removed along with the product. If you are debugging this, you are not missing an auth header and your client is not misconfigured. The service is retired and the pointer it gives you is stale. Skip straight to choosing a replacement.

Hiro is not gone, only its Bitcoin Layer 1 tooling is

It is worth being precise, because the 410 makes it look worse than it is. Hiro deprecated Ordinals, Runes, BRC-20 and the Bitcoin Indexer, which is its Layer 1 Bitcoin surface. The Stacks side is completely healthy. We called it the same hour: the extended blocks endpoint answered 200 reporting 8,902,391 Stacks blocks, and the node info endpoint answered 200 with a burn_block_height of 965,186, which matched the Bitcoin tip we measured independently minutes earlier. If you are building on Stacks, nothing here affects you and Hiro remains the obvious choice. If your queries were about Bitcoin inscriptions or holders, you need somewhere else to go.

Four replacements, four different ways of saying no

We called the obvious successors the same morning without keys, and the refusals are worth knowing before you budget a migration. Xverse, the successor Hiro named, serves ordinals at api.secretkeylabs.io and returned HTTP 402 Payment Required with a paymentauth.org problem type and a per request challengeId, so it is pay per call rather than a monthly key. Ordiscan also returned HTTP 402, citing the x402 protocol. UniSat returned HTTP 403 with code -2004 asking for a bearer token. A wrong path on Xverse returns a plain 404. Four providers in one niche, four different status codes for you cannot have this, which means any client you write needs to treat 402, 403, 404 and 410 as distinct outcomes rather than one generic failure.

Good questions

Hiro vs BitcoinDatabase, answered

Yes. Hiro announced the deprecation of its Ordinals, Runes, BRC-20 and Bitcoin Indexer APIs effective 9 March 2026 and pointed developers to Xverse. Calling those endpoints on 2 September 2026 returns HTTP 410 Gone with the message This API has been deprecated and is no longer available. The shutdown is complete, not partial.

Because 410 Gone means permanently removed, which is exactly what happened. Unlike a 404, a 410 tells clients the resource will never return, so retry logic and crawlers should stop rather than keep polling. Hiro chose the semantically correct status. The endpoint still emits rate limit headers alongside the 410, so failed retries are still counted against you.

Hiro named Xverse as the migration path, and Xverse serves ordinals data from api.secretkeylabs.io under a /v1/ordinals/ prefix with endpoints keyed by address and by transaction. Calling it without credentials on 2 September 2026 returned HTTP 402 Payment Required with a payment challenge, so access is pay per call. Ordiscan, UniSat and BitcoinDatabase are the other realistic options.

Nothing is wrong on your side. The 410 response body points at the ordinals API migration guide, and that page returned HTTP 404 when we followed it on 2 September 2026, as did the parent ordinals documentation page. The Hiro docs root still loads fine. Both pages were removed with the product, so go straight to evaluating a replacement rather than hunting for the guide.

Yes, and this matters for anyone reading the 410 as a company wide outage. Only the Bitcoin Layer 1 tooling was retired. On 2 September 2026 the Hiro Stacks endpoints answered normally: the extended blocks API returned 200 reporting 8,902,391 blocks, and the node info endpoint returned 200 with a burn block height matching the live Bitcoin tip.

Not through Hiro. Its BRC-20 token endpoint is part of the retired L1 set and answers 410. You need an indexer that keys on holder address, which is what BitcoinDatabase, Xverse and UniSat each provide in different shapes. Keep in mind that BRC-20 balances exist only as indexer output rather than as protocol state, so two providers can legitimately report different numbers for the same address.

For reading Bitcoin data, yes, particularly if your questions start with an address, a balance, a history or a cohort of holders rather than a single inscription id. We index the chain from the 2009 genesis block and expose it over REST, SQL and dashboards. For Stacks work, or for wallet and minting flows, we are the wrong tool and Hiro or Xverse respectively are the better fit.

No. BitcoinDatabase provides informational on-chain data and analytics only. It is not investment, financial or legal advice, and nothing here is a signal or guarantee.

Explore the data

The Bitcoin data you can query here

Bitcoin address lookup

Look up any Bitcoin address: balance, full history and UTXOs in one query.

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BTC address balance API

Get exact balances and UTXOs for any address, in batches.

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Bitcoin node API

JSON-RPC style access to blocks, transactions and balances, with no Bitcoin Core to run.

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Bitcoin address balance history API

What an address held on any past date, not just what it holds now.

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See everything BitcoinDatabase can query

Query the whole Bitcoin blockchain in one place

An address in, structured on-chain data out. BitcoinDatabase indexes balances, UTXOs, transactions, entity labels and fund flows since the 2009 genesis block, queryable by REST API, SQL and dashboards. No node to run.

See pricing

REST + SQL + dashboards · new blocks within seconds · informational on-chain data only