Bitcoin Addresses Explained: bc1q, bc1p, 3 and 1

A Bitcoin address is not an account but a destination: it describes which key may spend the bitcoin later. There are four common formats, recognisable by how they start: 1… (Legacy), 3… (P2SH), bc1q… (Native SegWit) and bc1p… (Taproot). All four are genuine Bitcoin addresses and work with each other. What matters most for you as a saver: use bc1q or bc1p, take a new address for every deposit and check every address on the device before you send.

What a Bitcoin address is and what it isn't

At the bank you have an IBAN, and behind it is an account with a balance. Bitcoin has no accounts. There are only individual amounts on the blockchain, and each amount carries a lock. The address is the short way of writing that lock.

When someone sends you bitcoin, a new amount is created with the lock "spendable only with the key behind this address". Your balance is the sum of all amounts whose locks your keys can open. Your wallet adds them up for you and shows one number. How amounts become inputs, outputs and change in a transaction is explained in How does a Bitcoin transaction work?.

Three things follow from this that often surprise beginners:

• One wallet has many addresses. A seed phrase can produce practically unlimited addresses. They all belong to you, and the same recovery restores all of them.
• An address is public. You can share it without anyone getting at your bitcoin. Only the private key is secret.
• An address doesn't expire. Even an old address can keep receiving bitcoin. Whether that is wise is another question (see below).

The four formats at a glance

Each new format made transactions smaller or more flexible. The old ones remain valid.

Legacy: addresses starting with 1

The original format from the first Bitcoin software. The address to which the very first block in 2009 paid its reward starts with 1: 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa. Legacy addresses still work, but transactions from them are the largest and therefore the most expensive. You shouldn't create new ones.

P2SH: addresses starting with 3

An address starting with 3 doesn't reveal what is behind it. It stands for a script that is only disclosed when the coins are spent. In 2012 this was the way to make multisig easy to use. Since 2017 many 3-addresses also hold "wrapped SegWit" (Nested SegWit). That was a bridge for exchanges and wallets that couldn't yet send to bc1 addresses. Today you hardly need this bridge.

Native SegWit: addresses starting with bc1q

The SegWit upgrade in 2017 brought a new address format called Bech32, described in BIP173. It uses only lowercase letters and digits, leaves out characters that are easy to confuse and has a stronger checksum. Transactions are much smaller than with Legacy. As of November 2026, bc1q is the default in most wallets, and practically every exchange can withdraw to it.

Taproot: addresses starting with bc1p

Taproot has been active since November 2021 (block 709’632). The addresses start with bc1p and use the slightly improved Bech32m format. Spending is a little cheaper again than with bc1q, and complex conditions such as multisig can look like an ordinary payment on the blockchain. As of November 2026, almost all current wallets and large exchanges send to bc1p. If an older service rejects the address, simply use a bc1q address for that withdrawal.

Fees: why the format costs money

The network fee depends not on the amount but on the size of the transaction in virtual bytes (vB). Most of it is taken up by the inputs, the amounts you spend. And how large an input is depends on the format of the address it sits on.

That is why the format matters mainly when spending. If you save on a Legacy address today, you pay the higher fee later, when you move the bitcoin.

For a single payment, bc1q and bc1p are close. Taproot outputs are a little larger, Taproot inputs smaller. The more inputs a transaction has, the more Taproot's advantage shows. Legacy costs about 60 percent more than bc1q in every case.

Convert these sats into euros or francs here:

How the fee rate comes about and when sending is cheap is explained in Bitcoin transaction fees and the mempool.

Compatibility: who can send to whom

All formats belong to the same Bitcoin network. You can send from a 1-address to a bc1p address and back. There is no "exchange" and no fee for switching formats, only the normal network fee.

Problems only arise when sending software doesn't know a newer format. It then rejects the address as invalid. No bitcoin are lost; the payment simply doesn't happen. In that case, give an address in an older format from your wallet.

Two things look similar but are not Bitcoin addresses:

• Lightning invoices start with lnbc… and are much longer. They belong to the Lightning Network, not directly to the blockchain.
• Testnet addresses start with tb1, m, n or 2. They hold play money with no value. A wallet sending real bitcoin rejects testnet addresses.

A new address for every deposit

The blockchain is public. Anyone who knows one of your addresses sees everything ever paid to it and everything that left it. If you give your employer, a friend and an exchange the same address, all three know your balance on that address and can follow your payments.

The 2008 white paper already recommends using a new key pair for every transaction. Modern wallets do this automatically: after each deposit they show the next unused address. Change also goes automatically to a new address of its own.

For you this means:

• Click "Receive" before every deposit and take the fresh address shown.
• Don't store one address permanently with an exchange or savings plan if you can avoid it. Many exchanges allow an address list; then add several new ones.
• Don't worry about the number. All addresses hang on the same seed phrase, and recovery finds them again.

New addresses are a basic rule, not complete protection.

Checksum: protection against typos

Every Bitcoin address contains a checksum. If you make a typo, the wallet almost always notices and rejects the address. So you can't accidentally send to an address created by a typo.

The bc1 formats are especially strong here. They reliably detect any error in up to four characters. They also leave out easily confused characters such as the digit 1 in the data part or the letters b, i and o. 1- and 3-addresses leave out 0, O, I and l.

Address poisoning and clipboard malware

Because nobody types out 42 or 62 characters, we copy addresses. That is exactly where two scams strike.

Clipboard malware is malicious software on a computer or phone. It watches the clipboard. As soon as you copy something that looks like a Bitcoin address, it replaces it with the attacker's address. You paste, and a different address appears.

Address poisoning works without malware. The attacker creates an address that looks exactly like one you use often at the start and the end. He sends you a tiny amount from it. Now his address is in your history, right next to your real ones. If next time you copy "the address from last time" from the history, you pick up his.

How to protect yourself:

1. Never copy from the history. Always get a recipient address fresh from the recipient's wallet, and your own via "Receive".
2. Compare the whole address, not just the start and end. Many wallets display it in groups of four. Go through it group by group, including the middle.
3. Test first with large amounts. Send a small amount, have the receipt confirmed, then send the rest. It costs a second fee and in the worst case saves everything.
4. Ignore unknown tiny deposits. If a tiny amount appears from an almost familiar address, it is often poisoning. Do nothing with it, don't send it back.

More scams and their warning signs are collected in Recognising Bitcoin scams.

Checking the address on the hardware wallet

Your computer can be infected without you noticing. A hardware wallet has its own display that malware on the computer cannot change. That display is therefore the place you trust.

When receiving, for example when you register an address at the exchange for withdrawals:

1. In the wallet app, choose "Receive" and tap "Show on device" or "Verify address".
2. Compare the address on the device with the one in the app and the one entered at the exchange, character by character.
3. If all three match, the address really belongs to your keys.

When sending, the hardware wallet shows you the recipient address and amount before signing. Compare the address there with the original source, meaning what the recipient gave you, not the text you pasted. If something doesn't match, reject it on the device. Then nothing is sent.

Which devices have a readable display and clean address verification is shown in the hardware wallet comparison.