Long symbols receiving addresses

[simnet]

Recently, after reinstalling the electrum, I faced that the receiving addresses provided by the electrum wallet have become longer (much more symbols) then they were earlier. These long addresses are not accepted by some of marketplaces. Can anyone explain how to return to the old short receiving addresses?

[TryNinja]

Starting with "bc1..." am I right? Those are native Segwit addresses, and unfortunately, they still aren't suported by many services/exchanges/wallets. You can create a legacy/standard wallet (addresses starting with a "1"), which are accepted everywhere by selecting it when creating a new wallet, or you can create a nested Segwit wallet (Segwit with addresses starting with a "3") which have cheaper fees and are also accepted everywhere.

That's how you can do it:

As a wallet, use Electrum with a Segwit address for lower fees. For now, I recommend to use a nested P2SH Segwit address instead of the bech32 format created by Electrum. So that's what you should do:

1. Go to iancoleman's BIP39 seed generator[1] (optional - download the source code and run offline for better security);
2. Select 12 words and generate a new seed;
3. SAVE THIS SEED AND DON'T LOSE IT! You can't see it again in Electrum and without the seed you can't restore your wallet in the future;
4. Download Electrum[2];
5. While creating the wallet, select: Standard Wallet -> I already have a seed -> Paste the seed from step 2.
6. Click Options -> check "BIP39 seed" -> Next.
7. Select "p2sh-segwit (p2wpkh-p2sh)", make sure the Derivation part is m/49'/0'/0'/0 and click next.
8. Now you have an Segwit wallet with addresses starting with 3.

[1] https://iancoleman.io/bip39/
[2] https://electrum.org/

[simnet]

TryNinja

Thanks for such a comprehensive answer.

[Abdussamad]

Starting with "bc1..." am I right? Those are native Segwit addresses, and unfortunately, they still aren't suported by many services/exchanges/wallets. You can create a legacy/standard wallet (addresses starting with a "1"), which are accepted everywhere by selecting it when creating a new wallet, or you can create a nested Segwit wallet (Segwit with addresses starting with a "3") which have cheaper fees and are also accepted everywhere.

That's how you can do it:

This isn't safe. You are trusting that site to not steal from you. Please don't encourage people to do this everytime they face a small problem with bech32 addresses. Much better to tell them to simply create a legacy wallet.

[TryNinja]

This isn't safe. You are trusting that site to not steal from you. Please don't encourage people to do this everytime they face a small problem with bech32 addresses. Much better to tell them to simply create a legacy wallet.

I’m pretty sure this website is open source and can be run offline. While that’s not a proof that it is legit, I’ve used it multiple time in the past, I’ve seen multiple trusted users use it and recommend it, and it has been out for a long time. Why would you even trust any software if we gotta go so hardcore about everything?

[nc50lc]

My BIP39 SEED was also created from iancoleman (offline- downloaded the code form GitHub) and so far, it's still not hacked.

The risks with the online site isn't the legitimacy of it, it's mostly the browser and malwares.
Next time, you might wanna tell the OP about the steps on how to use the offline version than using the online "risky" method.

Something like this:

• Download from github.
  
• Turn off the internet connection or transfer to an always-offline computer.
• Extract it.
• Drag and drop to the browser.