People keep asking me about the different types of bitcoin addresses and what they mean. Here’s a simple breakdown…
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A lot of people have been asking me about the different types of bitcoin addresses they see in wallets and the difference between each of them. Understandability, for a nontech person, it can be a bit confusing to see different types of addresses in their wallet and what all of it means.
Here is a simple breakthrough of the types of addresses you see in your bitcoin wallet.
**Legacy:** This is the original form of a bitcoin address that has been in existence ever since bitcoin.
A simple way to recognize these addresses is they all start with a “1”.
Example:
> 1BvBMSEYstWetqTFn5Au4m4GFg7xJaNVN2
Issues:
* Case-sensitive
* High transaction fee due to the large size
**Segwit:** The second version of the bitcoin address helped save in transaction fees by reducing the transaction size.
All of these addresses start with “3”.
> *347N1Thc213QqfYCz3PZkjoJpNv5b14kBd*
Issues:
* Case-sensitive
**Native Segwit:** The third edition of a bitcoin address. These addresses further reduce the fee and offer better usability by eliminating case sensitivity. They even offer an error-detection mechanism.
All addresses start with “bc1”
Example:
> *bc1qar0srrr7xfkvy5l643lydnw9re59gtzzwf5mdq*
Issue:
* A bug was reported in its error detection mechanism
* Not very common with crypto exchanges
**Bech32m:** An updated version of native segwit, bech32m fixes the error that was in its previous version plus it supports taproot [a latest bitcoin technology development]
Issues:
* It’s a new development so support is very limited.
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**Address compatibility:**
By design, all addresses are compatible with each other. It’s the wallets where the bitcoin address support varies.
Most popular wallets support all 3 address types, while some others only 1 or 2. It’s best to pick the wallet that supports all 3 and will also provide support for bech32m in the future.
As for the address, bech32/bech32m offers the lowest fee.
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*Source:* [*Blockonomics – Types of Bitcoin Addresses*](https://ift.tt/3eaRMlf)
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