Before Transferring Bitcoin: Understand Address Types

Start to feel more confident while making Bitcoin transactions by learning the difference between the types of Bitcoin addresses!

When you create a Bitcoin address in NC Wallet, you have three options: a Legacy address or two types of SegWit addresses. How do they differ?

Legacy

In the beginning was the Legacy address… Legacy (or P2PKH) is the original format, designed by the Bitcoin founder — Satoshi Nakamoto. This type of address starts with “1” and is universally supported. It’s compatible with almost all wallets and exchanges disregarding that newer types have emerged since.

SegWit

Introduced in 2016, the SegWit (or Segregated Witness) upgrade is aimed at increasing a block capacity — the number of transactions that could be added in one block. To cut a long story short, thanks to Segwit, the Bitcoin network can process more transactions per block, and users pay lower transaction fees. There are two types of SegWit addresses: 1) beginning with the combination “bc1q” (bech-32) and 2) beginning with “3” (P2SH). However, certain SegWit addresses might not be compatible with some services and platforms.

What if you send BTC to the address with a different type?

If we speak about sending to NC Wallet, it’s no problem — we support all mentioned formats. If you send, for instance, BTC from SegWit address to your Legacy address in NC Wallet, your BTC will reach the destination, safe and sound.