Bitcoin HWI Nears Retirement as Maintenance Mode Takes Hold

Bitcoin HWI (Hardware Wallet Interface) is in maintenance mode and nearing retirement. The project's maintainer announced that new devices or features will no longer be accepted beyond work needed for MuSig2.

HWI is a widely used interface for connecting wallet software to hardware signing devices, allowing users to discover devices, retrieve public keys, display receive addresses, and send partially signed transactions to devices like Ledger, Trezor, Coldcard, BitBox, or Jade for approval and signing.

The maintainer cited the Rust project BHWI as a promising successor but noted that it has not yet demonstrated a production handoff. HWI is expected to release one final version once MuSig2 work is complete, after which it will be kept in minimal maintenance until a suitable replacement is ready.