The Difference Between Bitcoin Cash Legacy Address and CashAddr

Been across any of these terms while transacting Bitcoin Cash? The CashAddr and Legacy Address are both address formats for bitcoin Cash but what makes them different? In the course of reading through, you'll get to learn the differences between these address formats.

Introduction

Addresses in the Blockchain technology are otherwise termed as the public keys, this key allows anyone to send or share a crypto currency with the primary party which is the owner of the Key. They are equally as important as the private keys but private keys are not to be given out or made public for security sake.

Initially, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash were one big digital currency. Then, Bitcoin was smoothly operating as a digital currency for peer to peer transactions until the fees for transacting because a cause for review. That brought about a proposal by a group of Developers to expand the block size to ease multiple transactions with lesser fees but that was rejected and it caused a hard fork which brought to existence Bitcoin Cash.

At the initial stage, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin shared almost a similar address format, which is now called the Legacy Address until a proposal was made and the CashAddr format was introduced.

Bitcoin cash legacy address vs Cashaddr Format

Legacy Address

A legacy address for bitcoin Cash is an old address format (usually looks like a Bitcoin address) which is no longer supported in most wallets. Does that mean that the Legacy address is totally useless? No. One can still make use of the the legacy address in wallets still supporting them but for wallets not supporting the Legacy address, you will have to change your legacy address to a CashAddr format.

CashAddr format

This was implemented after the hard fork on Bitcoin which gave birth to Bitcoin Cash to enable bitcoin Cash users able to distinguish between a bitcoin and a cash address. This also limited to the risks of losing funds to a wrong address.

CashAddr Formats usually appear with a sort of prefix like "Bitcoincash:" before the address. Example, bitcoincash:qpahdjavdbdjjsudhdhdbddhskaksk.

Differences Between The BCH Legacy Address and CashAddr

Medieval would be the best word to describe the Legacy Address, an old time format while the CashAddr is what is currently in use for bitcoin Cash Transactions.

Please Note that the essence of converting a Legacy Address to a CashAddr format is to enable those whose wallet do not support transactions using a legacy address. If your wallet still Supports transacting with a legacy Address, then all you need is get your Binance BCH wallet address (usually a legacy address) and make your Transaction.

The Legacy Address could be easily distinguished from the CashAddr through the absent of the prefix 'bitcoincash:' as it is usually Included in the CashAddr format.

Also, it is noticed that the CashAddr format usually begins its address with 'p' or 'q'.

This two addresses can equally be used to transact Bitcoin Cash BCH but, must be converted to a supported format before being used. For Instance, to deposit Bitcoin Cash in Binance, it is required that the legacy address given by Binance is converted to a CashAddr format, then used for transaction.

Also, note that you will automatically lose access to your asset is you send to a Legacy Address from a Cash Address. The Legacy Address must be converted to a CashAddr using a legacy address converter.

Investing in Crypto currencies are based on speculations so, it is adviseble that before investing on Crypto Currencies, one must DYOR.