I’ve been involved in crypto for years, and one thing I've always struggled with is the constant context switching.
I'd be working on something, want to check one price on DexScreener, then end up on X, looking at wallets, checking other tokens, or switching between trading terminals.
I wanted a way to keep the information I regularly check visible without constantly opening another tab or app.
So I started building a simple Windows desktop price ticker.
That eventually turned into TrenchHQ, a free and open-source desktop companion for crypto users.
It's now live on the Microsoft Store, and the source code is available on GitHub.
What it does
TrenchHQ lets you create floating overlays and screen-edge panels that stay visible while you work, browse or trade.
You can customize their size, position, colors and transparency, arrange them across multiple monitors, and save your layouts.
Currently, you can use these panels for:
- CEX Price Ticker: Follow spot pairs from exchanges.
- On-chain DEX Price Ticker: Track prices from specific liquidity pools.
- Wallet Watcher: Monitor activity from public wallet addresses.
- X Tracker: Watch posts from selected accounts using the official API.
- Website: Keep websites in their own panels with persistent logins.
- Application Window: Pin compatible Windows applications into your workspace.
The on-chain integrations currently cover Solana, Ethereum, Base, BNB Smart Chain and Robinhood Chain.
The interesting part was building the desktop experience
I wanted this to feel like part of Windows, not another dashboard running inside a browser.
That meant supporting floating always-on-top windows, screen-edge panels, multiple monitors and customizable layouts.
The core application is built using WinUI 3 / .NET, with supporting Rust and Node components.
One design decision was to separate panels from widgets.
A panel controls where something appears: its position, size, monitor, appearance and window behavior.
A widget controls what information is displayed inside it.
So you can configure a price ticker, wallet tracker or X feed independently of where it appears on your desktop.
You can also reuse saved widgets in different panels.
That separation made it much easier to support different kinds of content without building a completely different desktop-window system for each feature.
Adding on-chain data
Centralized exchange prices were relatively straightforward.
On-chain markets introduced a different set of problems.
A token can trade across multiple liquidity pools, sometimes on different DEX protocols, with different prices and liquidity.
Rather than only showing a generic aggregated token price, I wanted users to be able to select a specific supported pool and follow that market.
The app currently supports Solana and four EVM chains.
It also has to work with different data providers, some of which require API credentials, have usage limits or support different streaming capabilities.
TrenchHQ lets users configure their own provider connections and supports compatible provider fallback.
Live streaming is available where supported, with polling as another option.
Why I made it open source
Crypto-related desktop applications have an obvious trust problem.
I didn't want to ask people to install a closed-source executable that connects to market-data providers and handles their API credentials without being able to inspect the code.
TrenchHQ doesn't connect to wallets for signing, hold funds or execute trades. It is currently a monitoring tool.
Provider credentials are configured by the user, and the application doesn't require a TrenchHQ account.
The project is released under the MIT license, with setup instructions, architecture documentation and contribution guidelines in the repository.
It's finally available
After building and testing the desktop app, I also went through the Microsoft Store publishing process.
TrenchHQ is now available for Windows x64, with Store-managed installation and updates.
GitHub: https://github.com/gautamgpt1/TrenchHQ
Microsoft Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9plrs95wjkss
Website: https://gautamgpt1.github.io/TrenchHQ/
It's still early, and there's plenty I'd like to improve.
I'd especially appreciate feedback from anyone working with WinUI, Windows desktop utilities, on-chain market data or open-source applications.
I'm also curious: what other kinds of information would you want to keep visible in a desktop overlay?
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