SegWit address ?

[Roboabhishek]

Can someone tell me what's the actual difference between a segwit address and a normal address.
I've heard in the community that segwit address requires less fee for the transaction.

So how to create a segwit address in blockchain.info or in electrum.

[1713560396]

1713560396

[1713560396]

1713560396

[talkbitcoin]

i believe there are two forms of SegWit addresses at the moment.
1. P2SH nested segwit (P2SH-P2WPKH) which will look like normal P2SH addresses (start with 3)
2. Bech32 which will start with bc1 and has a different formatting than base58
and normal addresses as you know start with 1 or 3 and are base58 encoded

as for fees i believe the P2SH nested segwit will take up more size than the bech32 (but i may be wrong). and they say "it is cheaper to create SegWite transctions" but i have not yet tested this. last bech32 transaction i saw had 1 input and 2 outputs and was 255 bytes which is the same as regular transactions with P2PKH! so i am confused about that myself too.

So how to create a segwit address in blockchain.info or in electrum.

blockchain.info has not yet adopted SegWit as far as i know but if you install the latest version of Electrum, you can create a SegWit wallet there.

[VitKoyn]

Can someone tell me what's the actual difference between a segwit address and a normal address.
I've heard in the community that segwit address requires less fee for the transaction.

So how to create a segwit address in blockchain.info or in electrum.

The difference of Bitcoin segwit address to legacy address (old one), is how it process the transactions. Segwit increases the block size limit and remove signature from Bitcoin transaction for the network to be able to handle or process more transaction. This is why it is faster and cheaper if we use segwit addresses for sending Bitcoin. As of now blockchain.info still not yet supporting segwit features but they announced that they will support it this year. you can create segwit address on Electrum wallet, just create new standard wallet and new seed and choose segwit and you are done.

[Roboabhishek]

i believe there are two forms of SegWit addresses at the moment.
1. P2SH nested segwit (P2SH-P2WPKH) which will look like normal P2SH addresses (start with 3)
2. Bech32 which will start with bc1 and has a different formatting than base58
and normal addresses as you know start with 1 or 3 and are base58 encoded

as for fees i believe the P2SH nested segwit will take up more size than the bech32 (but i may be wrong). and they say "it is cheaper to create SegWite transctions" but i have not yet tested this. last bech32 transaction i saw had 1 input and 2 outputs and was 255 bytes which is the same as regular transactions with P2PKH! so i am confused about that myself too.

So how to create a segwit address in blockchain.info or in electrum.

blockchain.info has not yet adopted SegWit as far as i know but if you install the latest version of Electrum, you can create a SegWit wallet there.

Just my curiosity but is it possible that if I create a Segwit address on electrum and import the private keys on my blockchain account then it will work as a segwit address on the blockchain instead of using electrum every time?

[Lucius]

There is 2 types of SegWit addrress,but for now only Electrum use Bech32 format and this should be only correct SegWit format to use.But because of compatibility with other wallets/services others decided to use address which start with "3" which is in a way address which is converted from legacy to SegWit.So when use Electrum users should pay even smaller fee then when use other wallets/services.

i believe there are two forms of SegWit addresses at the moment.
1. P2SH nested segwit (P2SH-P2WPKH) which will look like normal P2SH addresses (start with 3)
2. Bech32 which will start with bc1 and has a different formatting than base58
and normal addresses as you know start with 1 or 3 and are base58 encoded

as for fees i believe the P2SH nested segwit will take up more size than the bech32 (but i may be wrong). and they say "it is cheaper to create SegWite transctions" but i have not yet tested this. last bech32 transaction i saw had 1 input and 2 outputs and was 255 bytes which is the same as regular transactions with P2PKH! so i am confused about that myself too.

So how to create a segwit address in blockchain.info or in electrum.

blockchain.info has not yet adopted SegWit as far as i know but if you install the latest version of Electrum, you can create a SegWit wallet there.

SegWit and non-SegWit transaction will have same size in bytes,but the difference is in weight of transaction which is smaller.And I was interested in how to determine the fee for SegWit transaction,and only way is to know their virtual size which you get if you divided their weight by 4.

For example if we have 200 byte transaction and we want to pay 100 sat/byte we get 20 000 satoshi fee,but if we know the weight of transaction which in this case could be 500 and divide that with 4 we get 125 bytes and 100 sat/byte x125 = 12 500 satoshi for fee.

In this way we can save on fee when using SegWit transaction,at least as far as I know about how SegWit work.

[Josepht]

Just my curiosity but is it possible that if I create a Segwit address on electrum and import the private keys on my blockchain account then it will work as a segwit address on the blockchain instead of using electrum every time?

I don't think that is possible since blockchain.info only supports legacy addresses.

I would be careful with the Electrum SegWit addresses though, since not all websites accept deposits from Bech32 SegWit addresses.

[TheQuin]

I don't think that is possible since blockchain.info only supports legacy addresses.

That's correct, Electrum warns you that the private keys will not import elsewhere when you make the Segwit wallet.

I would be careful with the Electrum SegWit addresses though, since not all websites accept deposits from Bech32 SegWit addresses.

As far as I have heard Coinbase is the only site actively blocking deposits from bech32 addresses. I have successfully deposited to localbitcoins and Crypto-games.net so far. Does anyone know of any others that are blocking?

[Wirex]

In Short, SegWit or Segregated witness compresses the size allows for an increased block size on the blockchain from 1mb to up to two without the need for any Additional Hardware as every 25 bytes is measured as one "unit" of information, in theory compressing the transation data.

 By doing this, users can take advantage of faster and cheaper transactiosns as there is less fees being payed toward the miners as more transactions can be eld within the same block.

Unfortunately Blockchain.Info has not yet implemented SegWit Wallets as of yet. Electrum is a good and fairly simple to use hardware wallet BUT you MUST use version 3.0.5 or later due to a vulnerability that was patched in that update.  

Here at Wirex, We have also implemented SegWit enabled wallets for all our users to enjoy. Also we enabled free and instant transactions across all Wirex Wallets.
for more information, Please follow these links:

https://wirexapp.com/bitcoin-money-transfers

https://wirexapp.com/segwit-wallet-upgrade-lower-blockchain-fees-customers/

[Roboabhishek]

So after reading those replies, I think that the segwit address can be used to send the Bitcoins to a legacy address or vice-versa or am I wrong here?
Also, the segwit address can be imported to blockchain once they are compatible with it, right?

[TheQuin]

So after reading those replies, I think that the segwit address can be used to send the Bitcoins to a legacy address or vice-versa or am I wrong here?

That is correct. The limitations are whether or not wallets support doing so. Anyone using Electrum can send to/from legacy and Segwit addresses in both directions.

Also, the segwit address can be imported to blockchain once they are compatible with it, right?

I assume you mean the blockchain.info wallet service rather than the blockchain. If and when blockchain.info fully implement Segwit support then yes.
The blockchain and the network supports Segwit already, it is the clients (wallets) that are catching up with implementing it.

[Roboabhishek]

So after reading those replies, I think that the segwit address can be used to send the Bitcoins to a legacy address or vice-versa or am I wrong here?

That is correct. The limitations are whether or not wallets support doing so. Anyone using Electrum can send to/from legacy and Segwit addresses in both directions.

Also, the segwit address can be imported to blockchain once they are compatible with it, right?

I assume you mean the blockchain.info wallet service rather than the blockchain. If and when blockchain.info fully implement Segwit support then yes.
The blockchain and the network supports Segwit already, it is the clients (wallets) that are catching up with implementing it.

I tried to send some bitcoins from Poloniex to the segwit address created in electrum but it gave me a message " Invalid address "
Any idea why is it doing that? on the other hand, this experiment will cost me around 10$  cause of the fee on poloniex.

[TheQuin]

I tried to send some bitcoins from Poloniex to the segwit address created in electrum but it gave me a message " Invalid address "
Any idea why is it doing that? on the other hand, this experiment will cost me around 10$  cause of the fee on poloniex.

That means that the wallet Poloniex is using (probably Core) doesn't yet have Segwit Bech32 compatibility so it doesn't allow you to enter a Bech32 destination address. In theory, there should be no technical reason that it wouldn't work the other way, sending from Electrum Bech32 address to Poloniex. It's difficult to be sure though as I did hear that Coinbase is actively blocking them for some insane reason.
It is a quite handy feature of Electrum that it is easy to keep multiple wallets so at the moment I have both a Segwit and a Non-Segwit hot wallet for day to day use.
The next release of Core (0.16.0) will fully support Segwit and Bech32 addresses so then we will see the services start to accept them.

[talkbitcoin]

i believe there are two forms of SegWit addresses at the moment.
1. P2SH nested segwit (P2SH-P2WPKH) which will look like normal P2SH addresses (start with 3)
2. Bech32 which will start with bc1 and has a different formatting than base58
and normal addresses as you know start with 1 or 3 and are base58 encoded

as for fees i believe the P2SH nested segwit will take up more size than the bech32 (but i may be wrong). and they say "it is cheaper to create SegWite transctions" but i have not yet tested this. last bech32 transaction i saw had 1 input and 2 outputs and was 255 bytes which is the same as regular transactions with P2PKH! so i am confused about that myself too.

So how to create a segwit address in blockchain.info or in electrum.

blockchain.info has not yet adopted SegWit as far as i know but if you install the latest version of Electrum, you can create a SegWit wallet there.

Just my curiosity but is it possible that if I create a Segwit address on electrum and import the private keys on my blockchain account then it will work as a segwit address on the blockchain instead of using electrum every time?

no it is not possible to do that because as i said above blockchain.info has not yet implemented support for SegWit so it will not be able to generate the SegWit address (bech32 that Electrum is using) for you. this means if you import your Electrum private key belonging to bech32 address, your BCI will show you a normal address starting with 1 without any balance.

[Roboabhishek]

I tried to send some bitcoins from Poloniex to the segwit address created in electrum but it gave me a message " Invalid address "
Any idea why is it doing that? on the other hand, this experiment will cost me around 10$  cause of the fee on poloniex.

That means that the wallet Poloniex is using (probably Core) doesn't yet have Segwit Bech32 compatibility so it doesn't allow you to enter a Bech32 destination address. In theory, there should be no technical reason that it wouldn't work the other way, sending from Electrum Bech32 address to Poloniex. It's difficult to be sure though as I did hear that Coinbase is actively blocking them for some insane reason.
It is a quite handy feature of Electrum that it is easy to keep multiple wallets so at the moment I have both a Segwit and a Non-Segwit hot wallet for day to day use.
The next release of Core (0.16.0) will fully support Segwit and Bech32 addresses so then we will see the services start to accept them.

Well if that's the case then is it possible to send btc from a segwit address to an address of poloniex?
Or sending btc from a segwit address to a legacy address not possible? if that's the case then I don't think switching to segwit would be that worth.

[TheQuin]

Well if that's the case then is it possible to send btc from a segwit address to an address of poloniex?

It should be. I don't have an account at Poloniex so I cannot confirm it works. I only say this as I have been told that Coinbase has deliberately blocked people from depositing from bech32 addresses. I have deposited at LocalBitcoins and Crypto-Games this way and had no problem.

Or sending btc from a segwit address to a legacy address not possible? if that's the case then I don't think switching to segwit would be that worth.

So this is not the case.

[Wirex]

Hi there,
In the simplest terms possible, SegWit or segregated witness increases the data stored on a block to up to 4 mb worth of data in a 1.8mb block by changing the way that the blocks are read as to not increase the hardware requirements of the Nodes. Instead of reading 4 bytes of information as 4 bytes, 4 bytes of information will be read as 1 "unit" of information. Thus allowing aditional information to be stored with a minimal blocksize increase.

As a result, transactions with segwit enabled wallets can be up to 60% cheaper than normal BTC transactinos (although that percentage varies with segiwt adoption).
For more information about segwit, Bitcoin or crypto in general, Feel free to check out the webinars made by our Brilliant Community Manager and Crypto-geek Raphael shalaby. All webinars are completely free to everyone and will also be available to watch soon after the live stream is concluded. If you are interested here is where to find the next webinar:
https://events.genndi.com/register/169105139238466377/1a876a10a7

[TheQuin]

Hi there,
In the simplest terms possible, SegWit or segregated witness increases the data stored on a block to up to 4 mb worth of data in a 1.8mb....

Wrong. Segwit removed the 1mb size limit and replaced it with a weighted unit limit. Normal data is weighted at 4 units per byte and only witness data is discounted at 1 unit per byte. As only part of a transaction is witness data it is nonsense to say that a block can contain 4Mb worth of data.

~snip advertising~

The OP was asking about sending to and from Segwit addresses, not Segwit blocks. I guess the seminar you are pushing is ill-informed as well.