In order to meet the compatibility, privacy requirements and handling fee optimization in different network environments, UKey hardware wallet and the client fully support the mainstream address formats of the Bitcoin network. This article aims to analyze the technical characteristics of each format so that you can make the best choice when managing your assets.
1. Bitcoin mainstream address format technical specifications
1. Legacy (P2PKH - Pay to public key Hash)
Address characteristics: in numbers
1Beginning (example:1Fh7ajXabJBpZPZw8bjD3QU4CuQ3pRty9u）。Technical description: The earliest basic address format of the Bitcoin network.
Application characteristics: It has 100% network-wide compatibility, but when making network transfers, its transaction volume is large, so the miner fee consumed is relatively the highest among all formats.
2. Nested SegWit (P2SH - Pay to Script Hash)
Address characteristics: in numbers
3Beginning (example:3KF9nXowQ4asSGxRRzeiTpDjMuwM2nypAN）。Technical description: Transitional compatibility solution for Segregated Witness (SegWit). Segregated Witness technology separates transaction signatures (Witness) from core transaction data, thereby improving the data throughput of a single block.
Application characteristics: Backward compatibility with legacy networks is achieved by encapsulating SegWit addresses in a P2SH structure. Compared with the Legacy format, its handling fee is significantly lower; however, due to its nested structure, it will generate about 10% additional byte consumption.
3. Native SegWit (Bech32 - Native Segregated Witness)
Address characteristics:by
bc1qBeginning (example:bc1qf3uwcxaz779nxedw0wry89v9cjh9w2xylnmqc3）。Technical description: A pure version of the address format optimized for SegWit based on the BIP173 protocol. Since there is no need to nest packages through P2SH, its underlying structure is more streamlined.
Application characteristics：
Extreme handling fees: Nesting redundancy is removed, the transaction volume is smaller, and the handling fee cost is the lowest.
Extremely error-resistant: Adopt case-insensitive Base32 encoding (only 0-9 and no confusing letters), and introduce a more advanced error-tolerant checksum (Checksum) mechanism. QR codes have higher storage density.
UKey official recommendation: Recommended for daily sending and receiving of BTCPreferred address format。
4. Taproot (P2TR - Pay to Taproot)
Address characteristics:by
bc1pBeginning (example:bc1p8denc9m4sqe9hluasrvxkkdqgkydrk5ctxre5nkk4qwdvefn0sdsc6eqxe）。Technical description: A new address format introduced in the major upgrade of the Bitcoin main network in November 2021. The bottom layer uses a modified version of Bech32m encoding.
Application characteristics: It is an upgraded and evolved version of SegWit. In addition to maintaining extremely low transaction fees, its core advantage lies in disguising complex multi-signature (Multi-sig) transactions as ordinary single-signature transactions through specific encryption algorithms (such as Schnorr signatures), thus greatly improving users'on-chainPrivacyandNetwork verification efficiency。
2. Switch the BTC address format in UKey Wallet
When transferring assets between different platforms or exchanges, you may need to match specific address formats. UKey Wallet provides you with flexible switching functions:
Open the UKey Wallet client and enter yourBTC accountpage.
Click【Receive】button.
At the top of the payment QR code interface or in the Settings option, click [Address Format Switch].
Depending on your needs, select Legacy, Nested SegWit, Native SegWit or Taproot in the drop-down menu, and the system will instantly generate secure payment address in the corresponding format for you.
(Note: No matter which of the above formats you use to generate the address, all formats belong to the same group of your seed phrase/private key, and the assets are essentially protected by the same security level.)