I was also thinking this is a bit overkill for beginners. In fact multi-sig addresses is something most people can ignore completely and might never see for years.
In an ideal world everyone should be using bech32 addresses already, but then you will still have to warn people SegWit addresses might start with a 3 as well as a bc1 for "legacy" reasons.
And what about those legacy Litecoin addresses starting with 3?
From a newbie perspective this is a mess, the definite fix IS bc1 but old wallets can't work with them so "just in case" we still use those starting with 3... But we shouldn't.
True content for this thread would be something along these lines:
TL;DR: Addresses starting with 3 are (very likely) SegWit, but they could rarely be multi-sig and extremely rarely, legacy Litecoin addresses.
Those starting with bc1 are (definitely) Bitcoin SegWit and should be used in most situations unless an outdated wallet or site still won't recognize it as a valid Bitcoin address.
Topic: BTC addresses starting with "3" what are they ? simplified explanation. - page 2. (Read 906 times)
April 19, 2019, 08:30:40 AM
April 18, 2019, 09:58:56 PM
but to be 100% certain, you need to send some BTC from that address first, once you do , follow this simple guide (Thanks @DarkStar_) https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50604626
when you are the one who created that wallet (address) then you already know the type of address that you have created, you don't need to send coins to figure it out!Quote
-Some people think you can not sign a message using a segiwt address and that's why they don't use it, which is not true anymore, you can sign messages from a segwit address both that start with "3" and "bc1".
you can sign a message with any private key or keys that you have and were involved in creation of an address (in other words you can even sign a message from a multisig address), however the problem is not the capability of signing, the problem is lack of standard so that when you sign a message others could verify it. 
April 18, 2019, 07:31:19 PM
Sometimes when you want to apply for a signature campaign, the manager will ask you to use a Segwit address, in this topic i am not going into details of what is Segwit or how it works.
I noticed that this discussion takes place almost every time a new spot opens in ChipMixer signature campaign thread, @o_e_l_e_o made a good brief explanation on what does the first letter/s in BTC address mean, but i decided to explain it a bit more in away that even a newbie who has no idea about all of this can (hopefully) understand.
in simple English the above means that address starting with 3 can be Sewgit, or a Multi-signature Non-Segwit address ( that's pretty much all you need to understand for now)
so how can you tell if your address that starts with "3" is actually segwit.?
Most wallets that provide you an address that starts with "3" is actually a Segwit address known as ( P2SH-wrapped segwit) and not a Multisig address unless of course stated so.
but to be 100% certain, you need to send some BTC from that address first, once you do , follow this simple guide (Thanks @DarkStar_) https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50604626
1- Go to blockchain.com
2- copy-paste the transaction id
and something like this will appear
notice how the 3rd address from the top starts with "3" and the input scripts shows (witness) which means it's a segwit address.
on some explorers it does not show the word "witness" so you need to look for (P2SH).
-Notice that the campaign manager/s won't do that for you because it makes no difference to them in terms of fees, it's you who would enjoy a great amount of discount on fees when you spend your BTC.
-Using Segwit address starting with "3" you can save 26% on fees, using segwit address that start with "bc1" known as (Native Segwit) you save 38% on fees.
-Some people think you can not sign a message using a segiwt address and that's why they don't use it, which is not true anymore, you can sign messages from a segwit address both that start with "3" and "bc1".
I noticed that this discussion takes place almost every time a new spot opens in ChipMixer signature campaign thread, @o_e_l_e_o made a good brief explanation on what does the first letter/s in BTC address mean, but i decided to explain it a bit more in away that even a newbie who has no idea about all of this can (hopefully) understand.
Addresses which start with "3" are P2SH and may or may not be Segwit. You can't tell for sure until coins from that address have been spent and you check the transaction's scripts.
in simple English the above means that address starting with 3 can be Sewgit, or a Multi-signature Non-Segwit address ( that's pretty much all you need to understand for now)
so how can you tell if your address that starts with "3" is actually segwit.?
Most wallets that provide you an address that starts with "3" is actually a Segwit address known as ( P2SH-wrapped segwit) and not a Multisig address unless of course stated so.
but to be 100% certain, you need to send some BTC from that address first, once you do , follow this simple guide (Thanks @DarkStar_) https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50604626
1- Go to blockchain.com
2- copy-paste the transaction id
and something like this will appear
notice how the 3rd address from the top starts with "3" and the input scripts shows (witness) which means it's a segwit address.
on some explorers it does not show the word "witness" so you need to look for (P2SH).
-Notice that the campaign manager/s won't do that for you because it makes no difference to them in terms of fees, it's you who would enjoy a great amount of discount on fees when you spend your BTC.
-Using Segwit address starting with "3" you can save 26% on fees, using segwit address that start with "bc1" known as (Native Segwit) you save 38% on fees.
-Some people think you can not sign a message using a segiwt address and that's why they don't use it, which is not true anymore, you can sign messages from a segwit address both that start with "3" and "bc1".
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