Will there always be backward compatibility for Bitcoin Wallet Addresses?

[Adar Korin]

So I have these paper wallets (a couple are actually printed on paper while a couple of others are saved to text files) and I was wondering will there always be backward compatibility for Bitcoin Wallet Addresses?  All of the wallet addresses on my paper wallets start with the number 1 so they are quite old now.  From what I can tell, there are balances for some of the forked coins, but I'm not ready to shift the bitcoins or get the funds from their forked counterparts (I'd have to have even more paper wallets to accommodate the forked coins compounding the problem).

From what I've seen wallet addresses have started with 1, then 3, now they are bc1q ... I guess I'm wondering do I need to shift the funds to new paper wallets?  Or, keep them as is and hope a future bitcoin wallet can still accept them?

[1714939698]

1714939698

[1714939698]

1714939698

[1714939698]

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[mk4]

From what I've seen wallet addresses have started with 1, then 3, now they are bc1q ... I guess I'm wondering do I need to shift the funds to new paper wallets?  Or, keep them as is and hope a future bitcoin wallet can still accept them?

Not really. I don't think there will be a time where legacy wallet addresses(with 1's) will be sort of deprecated and sort of "disabled", knowing that hodling is a widely adopted strategy. If there was plans from the devs and communities though(though I heavily heavily doubt it), I'm pretty sure it won't be activated over night, and there will definitely be a lot of arguments about it that you'd have a good amount of time to move your funds.

But yea, I'm totally positive that you'll be fine.

[pooya87]

Always is a long time and we can't predict what the future holds specially if we are talking about far away future. If you are talking about a year or two for example then the answer is yes, backward compatibility will be kept but if you are talking about a much longer time like 10 to 20 years then we can't really predict it, most probably the backward compatibility will be kept but there are a lot of things that can change in a decade or two about bitcoin that may break that may require significant changes in the protocol.

[MusaMohamed]

If you want to claim any forks from Bitcoin, you must take care of your Bitcoin.

Move your Bitcoin to another Bitcoin address before you use a private key of the old address to claim Bitcoin forks.
Compatibility. I don't know what will happen in the future. Bitcoin has 3, 1, and bc1 address types. Who know what other types it will have in the future. bcf as a type for future seqwit.

To be safe, I decentralize my Bitcoin in different wallets. And if you can, use some address types to store your Bitcoin.

[posi]

So I have these paper wallets (a couple are actually printed on paper while a couple of others are saved to text files) and I was wondering will there always be backward compatibility for Bitcoin Wallet Addresses? 
 

The bitcoin wallet  will always be backward interoperability so the wallet that starts with 1 which is also called the legacy wallet is never an old wallet and the concept of the 3 and bc1q .is to enjoy lower feel but most custodial wallet provider still use the legscy wallet.

I'm wondering do I need to shift the funds to new paper wallets?  Or, keep them as is and hope a future bitcoin wallet can still accept them?

You don't need to move your holding to new paper wallets if you're not planning to claim the forked coins in your holding wallet but it will be good though if you claim it since we are In ATH market.

[OgNasty]

Being backwards compatible is extremely important. Not everyone invested in Bitcoin follows or cares about development. If your store of value requires constant action in order not to be lost, it’s a pretty bad store of value. For this reason, I think not making legacy addresses compatible going forward would erode confidence in the system and would never be allowed to happen.

[khaled0111]

It's possible to use your saved private keys to generate new format addresses (starting with 3 or bc1). Hence, you don't really need to create new paper wallets and worry about how to secure them.

I don't have exact stats but am sure a big chunk of bitcoins are still in legacy addresses (not technically correct, though). Because of this and because of the reason mentioned by OgNasty, devs will always take into consideration the backward compatibility when implementing any updates to the protocol.

[hatshepsut93]

So far the devs avoided any decisions that would break backwards compatibility, and I'm sure it will be like that always. There's an example of backwards compatibility maintained for a long-long time - the web. Websites made with HTML and Javascript 20 years ago will still work on modern browsers. If they could do it, then Bitcoin protocol can do it too.

[ranochigo]

Both Bech32 and legacy uses RIPEMD160 and SHA256. Even if these were broken, there is little incentive to deprecate these as you'll only be able to get the public key by breaking these. I could see a point in deprecating either if a collision occurs with either of the address type which is quite unlikely.

In the far future, we could possibly deprecate ECDSA as a signature algorithm if it becomes insecure and cheap enough to attack. Probably would be given enough time to shift to a new algorithm before that happens. This affects all PK algorithm (legacy/Segwit).

[larry_vw_1955]

Being backwards compatible is extremely important. Not everyone invested in Bitcoin follows or cares about development. If your store of value requires constant action in order not to be lost, it’s a pretty bad store of value. For this reason, I think not making legacy addresses compatible going forward would erode confidence in the system and would never be allowed to happen.

This.

Satoshi might wake up one day and find out his stash is worthless without backward compatibility.

[ranochigo]

Satoshi might wake up one day and find out his stash is worthless without backward compatibility.

Changes are not always abrupt and if they are, then it has to be for a serious issue. There would usually be quite a period of time before any significant changes to the protocol and probably would give enough time for people to move their coins.

A thought experiment, if quantum computers becomes (practically and economically) feasible enough to attack the exposed public keys, wouldn't it be better to force people to discard ECDSA keys in favour of a quantum resistant algorithm? If the network doesn't adopt drastic measures, then I would assume that there is a significant chance of funds getting stolen, especially the millions from the already exposed addresses and removing those kinds of keys would be better for the community.

[Welsh]

Even if this was proposed, there would be a lot of resistance. I don't see a particularly convincing argument why this would absolutely have to happen. So, at the moment there's little chance of this happening. In the future, if this was a concern, and a legitimate reason for removing backwards compatibility, I can only see it happening if there's a particularity large concern. Although, in all likelihood if there was an issue, lets say legacy addresses were insecure, it would likely only change for new addresses, and those new addresses would still likely be able to receive, and send to legacy addresses.

A thought experiment, if quantum computers becomes (practically and economically) feasible enough to attack the exposed public keys, wouldn't it be better to force people to discard ECDSA keys in favour of a quantum resistant algorithm? If the network doesn't adopt drastic measures, then I would assume that there is a significant chance of funds getting stolen, especially the millions from the already exposed addresses and removing those kinds of keys would be better for the community.

If you could theoretically keep the addresses compatible, while introducing a new quantum resistant algorithm surely it would be better to allow the person who owns the address to have the option to upgrade or not. I'm not a massive fan of forcing things on people. Of course, this means that millions of Bitcoin will be vulnerable, and could effectively hurt the Bitcoin economy in the short term. However, I think people should have a choice to use whatever they want. Its their funds, they are their own bank, and if they choose to not upgrade to the new quantum resistant algorithm, then they accept the risk. This might be detrimental to others using Bitcoin, at least in the short term, but forcing them to accept a new protocol doesn't quite sit right with me.

I don't believe in the "greater good" in all instances. Especially, when it pretty much strips the freedom away from people. Of course, this means that a few stubborn users could actually hurt the broader Bitcoin community. Which, I'll be honest would probably happen if this was a reality. Its moral dilemma as one solution means you'll be forcing people to conform even if its for the greater good, and probably good reason. Then the other allows what would probably be a minority hurt the overall Bitcoin community. 

[ranochigo]

If you could theoretically keep the addresses compatible, while introducing a new quantum resistant algorithm surely it would be better to allow the person who owns the address to have the option to upgrade or not. I'm not a massive fan of forcing things on people. Of course, this means that millions of Bitcoin will be vulnerable, and could effectively hurt the Bitcoin economy in the short term. However, I think people should have a choice to use whatever they want. Its their funds, they are their own bank, and if they choose to not upgrade to the new quantum resistant algorithm, then they accept the risk. This might be detrimental to others using Bitcoin, at least in the short term, but forcing them to accept a new protocol doesn't quite sit right with me.

Probably not. Addresses are scripted in a way that relies on the ECDSA signature and ECDSA signature will be vulnerable if such a powerful QC gets developed.

Making millions of Bitcoins remain vulnerable is an economic risk. Your whole economic functions within Bitcoin will fail catastrophically given that hypothetical scenario and make Bitcoin absolutely worthless. Keep in mind that the millions of Bitcoins are likely to have been in control by Satoshi and there is little to no chance that he'll come back and do anything. Unfortunately, for the betterment of the community, you have to impose drastic changes.

I don't believe in the "greater good" in all instances. Especially, when it pretty much strips the freedom away from people. Of course, this means that a few stubborn users could actually hurt the broader Bitcoin community. Which, I'll be honest would probably happen if this was a reality. Its moral dilemma as one solution means you'll be forcing people to conform even if its for the greater good, and probably good reason. Then the other allows what would probably be a minority hurt the overall Bitcoin community.  

Then unfortunately, I believe most of the Bitcoin users believes that in order for Bitcoin to survive, you have to make certain hard choices. Of course, given Bitcoin's nature, you don't have to do so. Just make a fork to invalidate any ECDSA signatures and have another fork which still uses that standard. It is a choice that is left up to the user, if they believe in not burning those funds, then you can use the fork but also bear the blunt of the impact if anything happens to the ecosystem.

Its quite obvious that there will be two sides of the camp when met with such a scenario. But it is really not a partisan issue; if an attacker gets his hands on those Bitcoins, then you have to face the choice to either block it through a fork or let them liquidate it and possibly crash the value of Bitcoin as well. It's not quite like a block size debate where both scenario would pan out just fine and to me, not making the drastic measure (if there isn't any other solution) isn't the correct choice.

[Welsh]

Its quite obvious that there will be two sides of the camp when met with such a scenario. But it is really not a partisan issue; if an attacker gets his hands on those Bitcoins, then you have to face the choice to either block it through a fork or let them liquidate it and possibly crash the value of Bitcoin as well. It's not quite like a block size debate where both scenario would pan out just fine and to me, not making the drastic measure (if there isn't any other solution) isn't the correct choice.

Just to be clear; I'm actually for upgrading to a quantum resistant algorithm if the threat was real, and there wasn't any significant short comings. So despite, the decision when/if it comes not really impacting me. I still believe in the right of choice, and therefore allowing the users to individually decide. The issue with that is, even if we ignore those that make the choice to stay, there are still probably millions of Bitcoin which are sitting their idle because they've been lost either through mistakes, death or incompetency. So, even if you were to allow people to have the choice, there would still be these coins which would have a significant effect on the economy. At least on the short term. However, it could definitely effect adoption, once Bitcoin starts to tank because of it, which would probably effect its future success.

I think it would probably cause Bitcoin to crash, and although I would probably still have hope that it would be able to recover. Whether or not that effects future adoption enough to permanently prevent it climbing in any significant way in the future, remains to be speculated about.

[ranochigo]

Just to be clear; I'm actually for upgrading to a quantum resistant algorithm if the threat was real, and there wasn't any significant short comings. So despite, the decision when/if it comes not really impacting me.

Yup. I understood that.

I still believe in the right of choice, and therefore allowing the users to individually decide. The issue with that is, even if we ignore those that make the choice to stay, there are still probably millions of Bitcoin which are sitting their idle because they've been lost either through mistakes, death or incompetency. So, even if you were to allow people to have the choice, there would still be these coins which would have a significant effect on the economy. At least on the short term. However, it could definitely effect adoption, once Bitcoin starts to tank because of it, which would probably effect its future success.

I think it would probably cause Bitcoin to crash, and although I would probably still have hope that it would be able to recover. Whether or not that effects future adoption enough to permanently prevent it climbing in any significant way in the future, remains to be speculated about.

Probably lesser. Most of them are P2PKH which has no issues at all.

It will permanently affect Bitcoin. By deeming those stolen coins as valid, the circulation of the coins would be increased quite substantially (I think Satoshi has at least 1 mil and there are some other early holders as well). If you want to stop it from affecting the market, you'll have to censor it which raises a whole lot of other questions. It would completely destroy Bitcoin; how can Bitcoin be deemed as a safe asset (secured by math ) by anyone if the community is unwilling to implement** the draconian policies that ensures the security of it?

** I don't foresee it happening but rather it'll be two different forks with one vulnerable and the other isn't. It'll be interesting to see who would support the respective forks though.

[Husires]

Instead of thinking about the address, think of the private key. If you have the private key, your currencies will be backwarded compatibility for a long time.
Some encryption methods performed by many wallets may not be compatible with other wallets, so try to use open source wallets that you can rebuild them again and extract the private key that will be accepted in all Bitcoin.

Bitcoin updates will not canceling all previous transactions, otherwise it will be new Hardfork coin.

[Adar Korin]

My thanks to one and all who have contributed - it would seem I am quite able to leave my paper and text file private keys as they are for the time being.

Instead of thinking about the address, think of the private key. If you have the private key, your currencies will be backwarded compatibility for a long time.

Got it.  The private keys are safe for now (anything could happen in the future).

I only put away a few hundred dollars worth of Bitcoin aside a few years ago in various places  (Sorry for the vague nature of the amount or the locations).  The price has been good to me, not enough to retire on, not yet at least.  But, I know now there's not much likelihood the paper wallets will become incompatible before I might need to dip into those funds.