Topic: Difference between SegWit addresses - page 4. (Read 9496 times)
Just an interesting bit of information to have on mind when it comes to long term cold storage with segwit addresses: if you want to claim one of these dumb non-segwit forks like BCash that may happen in the future, you will not receive the coins. In other words, if there is a hardfork that does not support segwit, you will get no coins. So if there is ever another one of these with enough relevance to get some free money, remember that you must move your coins back to a legacy format address (the ones that start with 1.....). I think most people don't know that. Not that I expect anyone to make more non-segwit hardforks, but just in case, have that on mind. Im personally not moving my cold storage from the legacy format, I don't see the need.
Electrum 3.0 is out and the addresses are starting with bc1 apparently. I have a hardware wallet in the other hand where SegWit is supported too but the addresses are starting with 3 instead. What are the differences and are they compatible between each other (including the old addresses). Could I receive/send without having to worry?
The addresses starting with 3 (nested Segwit in a P2SH type) are definitely backwards compatible: older (non-Segwit) wallet software can receive BTC from your P2SH addresses, and they can send to them too.
The addresses starting bc1 (bech32 P2WPKH type) are a new Segwit only type to make addresses easier to use. They essentially make addresess case-insensitive, e.g. BC1MYNEWBITCOINADDRESSISBECH32 is the exact same address as bc1mynewbitcoinaddressisbech32
I'm sure bc1 (bech32 P2WPKH) are backwards compatible at the blockchain level, because they'd need a hard fork to implement them if not, but that doesn't mean that old wallet software will allow you to send BTC to them. Receiving from them using old wallet software may also be a problem, depending on how that specific wallet software is written. But old wallet software may be able to send or receive, to reiterate, it entirely depends on how the software was written.
It's maybe best to think of the 3 (P2SH) addresses as transitional, and the bc1 (bech32 P2WPKH) addresses as better for a post-Segwit situation (i.e. once non-Segwit addresses become atypical for users and businesses)
segwit addresses fees are low compared to BTC address and they are identical in cryptographic format
Electrum 3.0 is out and the addresses are starting with bc1 apparently. I have a hardware wallet in the other hand where SegWit is supported too but the addresses are starting with 3 instead. What are the differences and are they compatible between each other (including the old addresses). Could I receive/send without having to worry?
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