Topic: If non-Segwit nodes are not full nodes, how does it affect legacy addresses? (Read 271 times)

Also, the only think you need to worry is developer & majority of community agree to make controversial change which affect legacy address, but it's extremely unlikely and usually only happen on forked coins (i think this is the only real concern)


I agree with your opinion, but i'm not talking about few years in future, but probably 20-100 years in future where legacy address probably not used any recent wallets.
But realistically i doubt anyone would write code as it don't bring any benefit, expect quadratic verification time growth on legacy address.

The address type used in a transaction is completely unrelated to what consensus rules a node understands. Segwit nodes are not nodes that only understand segwit; they are nodes which understand the old consensus rules AND understand the new segwit consensus rules. If non-segwit nodes die out, then legacy addresses are completely fine and usable. The scripts that those addresses map to are still valid scripts that can be spent by any modern wallet software.

You can right now create legacy addresses using Bitcoin Core which would be considered a segwit node. With segwit enabled (not like you can disable it), you can create new legacy addresses, receive Bitcoin at them, and spend their Bitcoin without needing to do anything special other than specifying that you want legacy addresses. This does not enable some special mode or do anything else. It literally just encodes the public key in a different way. All of the code for creating and handling non-segwit addresses will likely remain in Bitcoin Core for a long time. And even after it is gone from the wallet, the validation side of things will still validate and relay non-segwit transactions just fine because removing them is a hard fork and that's just not going to happen.

The number of non-segwit nodes has absolutely no affect on legacy addresses whatsoever, and whoever told you it does is spreading FUD.

There is no effect.

It makes no difference at all, all nodes understand pre-segwit addresses

This is correct and this is because SegWit nodes can verify SegWit and non-SegWit transactions, while the legacy nodes can only verify legacy transactions.
But as you can see legacy transactions can be processed by both types of nodes, so the legacy addresses just "work" in the same way they always did. And I expect they always will.
Just think: if Satoshi will come into light in 10 more years and wants to access his Bitcoin, do you think that any developer can prohibit his access (if he has the keys) just because it's a legacy address??!



I'd not agree with such a decision. If I buy Bitcoin for long time storage (more than 3 years) I may want to use legacy address and I'd prefer nobody stops me.

I made this topic asking if non-Segwit nodes could be still considered full nodes, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5067738.0https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5067738.0

Doing some of my own reading, and research, I believe non-Segwit nodes are not "full nodes". The question for me now is, "How does this affect my cold storage coins contained in a legacy address?".

That might be a stupid question, but I am curious how legacy addresses would be affected in the long term.