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Topic: how to send BTC from a paper wallet old address P2PKH to bech32 address (Read 345 times)

legendary
Activity: 3416
Merit: 1912
The Concierge of Crypto
It makes sense to test a particular method at least once, with a small amount, so you know it works, even if other sites have said it should work.

Then you know that it indeed works. Then you create a new wallet with the same method and you can be assured it should work the same way.

We still see whale amount of coins do tests of 0.01 BTC before they go on and send a few hundred to a few thousand BTC to the same address.
legendary
Activity: 2534
Merit: 6080
Self-proclaimed Genius
-snip- If you must use paper just sweep the key every few months or years to test.
Completely agree on the Hardware wallet part but this! There's no point in "testing" your paper wallet.
Plus you might be talking about import to an offline wallet, not sweep.
You'll only need to do the "import thing" during the creation to double-check if the key will generate the correct address.
And as long as it was created and kept offline, you can assure that your cold storage fund is safe.
full member
Activity: 658
Merit: 103
BLOCKCHAIN ART GALLERY SYSTEM
I recommend a hardware wallet like ledger or trezor for long term storage. Paper can be very risky, but as secondary backup, might be fine. If you must use paper just sweep the key every few months or years to test.
man, and is it definitely safe? im pretty nervous  Embarrassed
newbie
Activity: 12
Merit: 0
I recommend a hardware wallet like ledger or trezor for long term storage. Paper can be very risky, but as secondary backup, might be fine. If you must use paper just sweep the key every few months or years to test.
legendary
Activity: 3416
Merit: 1912
The Concierge of Crypto
Moving your coins once every few years might be a good test too. So you may spend a little on transaction fees, but if you are not in a hurry, you can use 1 sat per vbyte and it will most likely confirm within a day or two, then you now keep the new paper wallet in cold storage for another 5 to 10 years.

If new address formats emerge, or better ways to store or keep or spend coins, then wait awhile for the technology to slightly mature and maybe test it out too. To keep up with advancements.

I mean, at this point, if I still had any coins in legacy addresses, I would start moving them to bech32 addresses; (and grab any forked coins you may have acquired in the fork / airdrops.)

If you had coins before BCH or BSV, those new alts can be sold to add to your stash and more than make up any transaction fees you would be concerned about, unless you want to keep some of the BCH, BSV, BTG or whatever freebies you got.
copper member
Activity: 85
Merit: 5
I'm planning to keep them many more years
so keep them in safe place, do not worry about address formats. just make sure you send ALL amounts at ONCE to a wallet when you want to use them or you may loss your coins.
hero member
Activity: 1106
Merit: 521
So if I understand correctly, my current paper wallet with old address format P2PKH and corresponding private key is save for spending in the far future (I'm planning to keep them many more years). The bitcoin protocol will always support this current paper wallet?

The answer is Yes and moving now may save you substantial fees in the future and bech32 addresses are considerably cheaper to use.
legendary
Activity: 3416
Merit: 1912
The Concierge of Crypto
That's not what OP asked for.
The question was not how you would create a paper wallet, but how to transfer coins from an already existing one.

He wants to send it from the old paper wallet to a new one. I was suggesting a way to create a new paper wallet safely so he can send from the old one to the new one. He'd of course still use the same wallet as before to send to the new one, or sweep the old one using Electrum.
legendary
Activity: 1624
Merit: 2481
I'd use Electrum or the iancoleman bip 39 tool to generate some seed words, verify that it works with Electrum, and use that for a paper wallet with the native segwit addresses. Offline of course, separate physical computer or laptop.

That's not what OP asked for.
The question was not how you would create a paper wallet, but how to transfer coins from an already existing one.



So if I understand correctly, my current paper wallet with old address format P2PKH and corresponding private key is save for spending in the far future (I'm planning to keep them many more years). The bitcoin protocol will always support this current paper wallet?

Yes, if nothing severe happens (i.e. some kind of vulnerability exploit), they will continue to be supported.
And if something like that would happen, this would lead to way bigger problems for the whole network and its users than just your paper wallet.

If you still want to transfer your funds, make sure to do so on a safe device.
The more coins you have on this paper wallet, the more paranoid you should be when typing that private key into a software/computer.
legendary
Activity: 3416
Merit: 1912
The Concierge of Crypto
I'd use Electrum or the iancoleman bip 39 tool to generate some seed words, verify that it works with Electrum, and use that for a paper wallet with the native segwit addresses. Offline of course, separate physical computer or laptop.
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 10611
i can't think of any reason that could make version* 0 P2PKH addresses obsolete but not affect version** 0 P2WPKH addresses (the bech32 address you have in mind). apart from transaction serialization for signing and the final transaction and obviously the scripts they use exactly the same. the use the same hash algorithm and the same signature scheme (ECDSA over secp256k1).
if some day bitcoin stops supporting version 0 P2PKH addresses, surely it will stop supporting version 0 P2WPKH also.

* version here is the version byte added to the beginning of the hash160 result and the address sometimes is referred to as version one address although the version used is actually 0
** version here is the witness program version

these two suggestions aren't particularly good.
for starters the site is a site so it is unsafe to use, so he has to run the copy source code offline even then it is still a rather unpopular project (compared to the similar project bitaddress.org) and is using JavaScript which isn't known for its security!
as for  Coinomi, it is a closed source wallet which i wouldn't recommend to anybody unless they have no other choice which isn't the case here.
staff
Activity: 3500
Merit: 6152
So if I understand correctly, my current paper wallet with old address format P2PKH and corresponding private key is save for spending in the far future (I'm planning to keep them many more years). The bitcoin protocol will always support this current paper wallet?

Yes. It shouldn't be a problem. If you're paranoid and would like to switch and print another paper wallet (bech32) use: https://segwitaddress.org

For using your funds in the future. There is Mycelium, Coinomi or Electrum as suggested above.

Also, if the amount you're planning to store is big, I would highly recommend you invest in a hardware wallet instead.
newbie
Activity: 6
Merit: 7
So if I understand correctly, my current paper wallet with old address format P2PKH and corresponding private key is save for spending in the far future (I'm planning to keep them many more years). The bitcoin protocol will always support this current paper wallet?
legendary
Activity: 3682
Merit: 1580
there is no risk of bitcoin not supporting spending your coins so you don't have to do this. but if you want to do it anyway download and install electrum from electrum.org, create a new wallet making sure to select segwit in step 4 in order to get bech32 addresses and then sweep your private key.
newbie
Activity: 6
Merit: 7
I have a paper wallet with old address format P2PKH. I do have de public and private key on paper.
I would like to send the balance to a new bech32 address to avoid that in the future I still can recover the BTC in case bitcoin doesn't support anymore P2PKH address.
Can somebody explain me step by step what I have to do and which program I have to use? I am not a computer expert.
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