HD wallet support is finally coming to Bitcoin Core

Bitcoin Core, formerly called Bitcoin-QT, is going to be implementing Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) wallet architecture.

Bitcoin Core is the original reference client by Satoshi Nakamoto, which is a full node and includes a bitcoin wallet for those who decide to send and receive transactions from the client.

The client although robust for running a full node and validating transactions, lacks many features in the wallet that other wallets offer. One piece of functionality that has been missing has been HD wallet support. And in a pull request yesterday, HD wallet support was officially merged to the client for future release.

HD wallets are an important use-case for the bitcoin ecosystem. This is because deterministic wallets don’t reuse bitcoin addresses, which helps with user privacy. User privacy in bitcoin when using wallets has been an important issue over the years. When the OBPP released their updated report in February, it also helped bring light again to the issue that wallets need better privacy. Deterministic wallets are one-step forward to having a well rounded architecture. Another wallet that also recently added HD support is the Blockchain.info wallet.

The new deterministic Bitcoin Core wallet will follow the BIP-32 standard and is currently undergoing testing. Bitcoin Core is one of a few bitcoin implementation clients that support the network. Other clients are Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Unlimited.