Wallet address formats for Bitcoin Cash

Modified on Fri, 10 Jan at 3:29 PM

Bitcoin Cash or BCH is a cryptocurrency that was created from a hardfork of Bitcoin (BTC), therefore users can usually use a wallet address of BTC for BCH transactions. In the beginning, the wallet address of BCH was in the 'Legacy' format. Later on, the team of developers of BCH created a new format called 'Cash Address' to make the BCH differ from the BTC address to prevent confusion.

There are 2 major formats of BCH wallet address:

  1. Legacy format is the old wallet address format that starts with the number 1 or 3.
  2. Cash address format (CashAddr) is the new wallet address format that starts with an English alphabet and can start with or without "bitcoincash:". (However, for internal transfer, please always indicate this text at the beginning of the address when creating a BCH transaction to prevent the loss of assets.) This format is the BCH address format that Bitkub Exchange supports.


The good news is every Legacy address has its own Cash address format that users can check by themselves on blockchain.com.


Why can I sometimes use the Legacy address but sometimes cannot?


Sometimes users cannot transfer BCH to a Legacy wallet; this is because the exchange does not support (unable to detect) the Legacy address format.

In this case, users are advised to contact the Legacy wallet provider to see whether they can use the Cash address format of the Legacy wallet for BCH transactions and the assets will not be lost. (If it is okay to do so, you only need to check the Cash address format as previously mentioned and use it for your next BCH transaction!)


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