How to connect a Waveshare E-Ink display to a Raspberry Pi

In this guide, you'll learn how to wire a Waveshare 2.13" e-paper display to your Raspberry Pi and run the BTC Ticker software so it shows the live Bitcoin price.

What you'll need

Raspberry Pi (any model with a 40-pin GPIO header; this guide uses a Pi 4)
Waveshare 2.13" e-ink display V2 (epd2in13) with 8-pin HAT connector or loose wire harness — $14.99 on waveshare.com
Jumper wires (if your display comes with a loose harness rather than a HAT)
MicroSD card with Raspberry Pi OS (Debian Bookworm/Trixie) installed
Internet connection on the Pi to fetch prices

What you are going to build

Raspberry Pi 4 in red aluminum case with Waveshare e-ink display showing $73.08k

Raspberry Pi 4 with the Waveshare 2.13" display showing the live BTC price

1. Enable SPI on the Raspberry Pi

The e-ink display communicates over the SPI bus, which is disabled by default. Enable it with raspi-config:

sudo raspi-config

Navigate to Interface Options → SPI → Yes, then reboot:

sudo reboot

2. Wire the display to the GPIO header

The display has 8 pins. Connect them to the Pi's 40-pin header as follows. Use either the physical pin numbers or the GPIO labels — but don't mix them. The full reference is in the Waveshare wiki.

Back of the Waveshare 2.13inch e-Paper HAT showing the pin labels VCC GND DIN CLK CS DC RST BUSY next to the cable connector

Pin labels printed on the back of the display

Display pin	Physical pin	GPIO / function
VCC	Pin 17	3.3 V power
GND	Pin 20	Ground
DIN	Pin 19	GPIO 10 / MOSI
CLK	Pin 23	GPIO 11 / SCLK
CS	Pin 24	GPIO 8 / CE0
DC	Pin 22	GPIO 25
RST	Pin 11	GPIO 17
BUSY	Pin 18	GPIO 24

Raspberry Pi 40-pin GPIO header — raspberrypi.com

Tip: after connecting, most pins cluster between physical pins 17–24, with the RST wire reaching back to pin 11. Double-check that pin before powering on.

3. Install the btc-ticker package

On your Raspberry Pi, clone the repository and install the package into a virtual environment:

git clone https://github.com/janrothen/btc-ticker
cd btc-ticker
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[rpi]"

4. Run it

With the virtual environment active, start the ticker:

python3 -m btcticker

The display will show the Bitcoin logo on startup, then begin refreshing the price every 5 minutes. Press Ctrl+C to stop.

5. Run as a systemd service (auto-start on boot)

A ready-made service unit is included in the repository. Install it so the ticker starts automatically whenever the Pi boots:

sudo cp deploy/systemd/btcticker.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable btcticker
sudo systemctl start btcticker

Check that it is running:

sudo systemctl status btcticker

Full installation instructions are in deploy/systemd/README.md.