Change address version

[prusnak]

I suggest to change the address version to something different, so it is obvious the address is a Bitcoin Cash address. (It can start with C for example). Don't forget to change also address version for P2SH!

[ta32]

I would have preferred bitpays solution even before the DAA HF. Its very easy to make this mistake when making shapeshift transactions. Your refund address is a bitcoin address and your deposit is a bitcoin cash address. I hope this issue is the next priority after the DAA HF :)

[deadalnix]

https://github.com/Bitcoin-UAHF/spec/blob/master/cashaddr.md

[prusnak]

I strongly recommend to suppress the urge to invent new things and just use bip-0173 with no modifications. This will cost extra engineering efforts in the whole ecosystem and for no obvious good reason.

[rubensayshi]

strongly agree with @prusnak, most bitcoin libs have or are adding bip173 support, it will be much easier for wallet devs to implement if it matches bip173 completely

[rubensayshi]

https://twitter.com/khannib/status/930223617744437253

Antoine Le Calvez @khannib As of right now, there has been at least 478 BCH ($644k) sent by mistake to SegWit addresses. Contact your local miner if you want to recover your funds :)

https://twitter.com/khannib/status/931448049125249024

Antoine Le Calvez @khannib https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/address/3DutBysquuSbQxYA6EEq3m8VBQDBqa55mw becomes the first SegWit address whose funds were recovered (100 BCH), I trust @btccom_official to do the right thing and return them to their original owner. (Remains 443 BCH to claim).

@deadalnix it's time to act, this will only get worse over time, between now, this being released, being adopted and the old addresses being deprecated it will already be much worse probably, the longer the delay in getting the ball rolling to fix it the bigger the amount of BCH lost will become

[ta32]

This change is not a protocol change, its a client level change on how addresses are represented. The timeline should be up to the wallet providers

As it stands there two ways of doing this: support the old address format but give a warning, and support the new address format (once safely implemented - i believe next version of bitcoin cash). Then remove support for the old address once most of the ecosystem have moved to it. (Jan 14th @deadalnix https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-ml/2017-November/000472.html)

or only support the new address format.

Users needed this feature months ago, why do we have to wait till January if this feature is ready soon? If there is anything wallet providers can do to protect users from mistake now, they should do it as quickly and safely as possible. @prusnak @voisine

In this instance we dont need wait for the "reference client" due to the layer at which this change is being done. We only need consensus on the implementation. ( I think we have this ?)

[RussianSwiss]

Need to sell BCH to old address. All exchanges use old addresses.

Where can we find a tool to convert old address to new?

https://github.com/bitpay/copay/issues/7236

[lacksfish]

I'd also suggest to gradually move away from prefix 1 for P2PKH and from 3 for P2SH. Litecoin managed to pull it of moving from 3 -> M for P2SH

This is a short, crisp discussion on the matter: https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/issues/179

[rubensayshi]

https://www.yours.org/content/january-14-2018---bitcoin-cash-change-the-address-day--d946c3dad317/

seems there's been progress on this discussion (and decision been made) through other channels than github.

at this point i'll take any change that avoids the confusion that is currently haunting users.

@prusnak

[abrkn]

https://github.com/abrkn/shilly/issues/40

[Ayms]

@abrkn I think that I will implement the new address format in node for https://github.com/Ayms/bitcoin-transactions, even if not mandatory, when this is live (and/or clear, somme comments here can still give some doubts)

[schancel]

This is up for converting from old to new: https://cashaddr.bitcoincash.org/

[Ayms]

FYI https://github.com/Ayms/cashaddress the difference with other js implementation is that it does not require any external module and is just a simple small file/code