Thursday, August 22, 2024

Understanding Bitcoin Addresses

 I tried to join 3, but ended up joining only 2, Discord servers to get answers to this, as Google was useless. I swear Google search is getting worse by the day... Anyhow...

My mom needed a Crypto Wallet that started with a number, not a letter. That is all the information I had. I posted this in the two Discord servers I tried, Cracking Crypto and Crypto Currency. They just ignored me at Cracking Crypto and were not helpful at all. Crypto Currency is THE WORSE DISCORD COMMUNITY IN THE WORLD, PERIOD!

Though I was clearly not spamming, simply asking a question, and did receive some help, I come back the next day, hopeful for more answers, only to be told that I was banned for spamming! It was BLATANTYLY CLEAR AND OBVIOUS I was NOT a spammer! I never posted links, never advertised anything, and only asked questions and sought advice.

But what is COMPLETELY UNFORGIVABLE of BOTH Discord Communities is that NOT A SINGLE FUCKING PERSON COULD or WOULD ANSWER MY SIMPLE QUESTION! I asked what Bitcoin/Crypto currency addresses that started with letters were called. THEY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT IMMEDIATELY!

Well YOU won't have to go through that BS, because I will tell you what you need to know, right here, right now! A Bitcoin address that starts with a letter is a, "Native Segwit Address (bech32)." The prefix of a Native Segwit Address is actually bc1.

A Bitcoin address that starts with the number 1 is called a, "Legacy Bitcoin Address (P2PKH)" and it WILL HAVE capital letters in it. In Exodus Wallet, I am not sure if you have to go into Settings and Enable Advanced Wallet Settings to see this, but after I did I noticed a toggle for Legacy Bitcoin Address, and this gives you an arrow initially to the right of your deposit address and QR code, that when clicked, provides your Legacy Bitcoin Address.

A Bitcoin address which starts with the number 3 is a, "Nested Segwit Address (P2SH)." If a site only seems to accept Bitcoin addresses that start with numbers, that means they likely work only with a Legacy Bitcoin Address or a Nested Segwit Bitcoin Address.

Here is a link to a page from the, so far excellent, Exodus Wallet, which details everything:
https://www.exodus.com/support/en/articles/8598629-bitcoin-faqs-learn-more-about-btc

It is so fucking simple, why couldn't anyone have told me this? Why couldn't Google have translated the search, "Bitcoin addresses that start with letters VS numbers" into that? I don't have a fucking clue! I apologize for the swearing, please don't let this distract you from the value of this information. I am not sure you are going to easily find it anywhere, without knowing the exact phrases to search for. It was truly a Hi-Tech Headache!

There are videos at that page I encourage you to watch, I will be going over the entire thing and watching the videos in the near future. I will update this post with anything else I learn that is relevant. Please comment below to let me know if this post helped you.