Expiry of public address

[L.Z.]

Hello, I am new to Electrum. I have just concluded a transaction with an exchange to buy BTCs. BTCs will be transferred to my wallet once payment will be credited into the exchange's bank account - this will likely occur by the beginning of next week (Monday/Tuesday). By mistake, I have provided to the exchange a public address which will expire in one day so that, when payment will be processed, BTCs will be transferred to a public address already expired. I have already written to the exchange in order to assess whether I am still in time to provide a different public address which will expire later in time but am still awaiting responses.  What will happen if I cannot replace my public address? Can a transfer to an expired public address actually occur? Will I lose my BTCs?
Many thanks in advance for your help.

[1715118298]

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[1715118298]

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[1715118298]

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[ranochigo]

No. Addresses never expire. Electrum has payment requests which 'expires' and stop marking them as paid once the expiry has passed. It's purely for easier bookkeeping and doesn't affect the validity of your addresses. The address used for that request will never expire and be valid whenever you need it.

If you want to see the address, you can go to the address tab or if you didn't enable it, click the View at the top and Click Show Addresses.

[LoyceV]

Electrum has the option to make the request expire, that doesn't influence the address itself. Think of it as something you can use for your own administration.
Bitcoin addresses don't expire.

Oh, what ranochigo said

[L.Z.]

Thank you both.  That sounds great.  Still not getting what exactly expires though...
The important thing however is to be able to receive BTCs in a valid address

[hosseinimr93]

Still not getting what exactly expires though...

The "expiry" feature in electrum can be used when the price of something is in fiat.

Let's say I am going to sell you something for 100 dollar and you are going to pay me with bitcoin.
Since bitcoin value is volatile, I tell you I accept the payment only if you pay me in the next hour. Otherwise I have the right to reject the payment.
If I set the expiry time to 1 hour, electrum will show me if you have made the payment before the deadline or not.

[DannyHamilton]

. . . Still not getting what exactly expires though...

Imagine that you were running a business and accepting Bitcoin payments with Electrum.

Imagine that you use Bitcoin Addresses like invoice numbers, so everytime a customer owes you a payment, you issue a new bitcoin address.  This allows you to keep track of which customers have paid, when they paid, how much they paid, and what the purpose of that payment was.

Imagine that you'd like to be able to keep track of which customers have paid you in a timely manner, and which customers are overdue.

You can set an expiration on the payment request.  Then, by looking at the list of payment requests, you can see who still has plenty of time to pay, whose request is about to expire, and who is overdue and needs to be sent a reminder with a new payment request (probably with a new payment amount since they now have late fees).

If a payment is sent to an address that is associated with an expired request, you'll still receive the payment to Electrum, but you'll know that the payment came late and that you need to contact that customer and let them know that they owe you a late fee due to their un-timely payment.