Legacy address to bech32m compatibility

[willybersah]

I know this might be a silly question. Is bech32m address backward compatible with legacy addresses?

Or a better way to ask this would be, can a transaction consists of legacy inputs and bech32m outputs and vice versa?

[OmegaStarScream]

Yes, they're compatible but that would depend on the software you're using. Some wallets/exchanges don't support sending/withdrawing to bech32 addresses.

[Charles-Tim]

Go totally noncustododial, use noncustododial addresses, you can send from segwit to legacy and from legacy to segwit. But why bothering about legacy addresses, it is good not to use such addresses anymore unless it is mandatory, you can save up to 42% to 52% on transaction fee if you are using segwit.

Yes, they're compatible but that would depend on the software you're using. Some wallets/exchanges don't support sending/withdrawing to bech32 addresses.

That is true, but I am still wondering why some exchanges just do not do such important update in time, segwit is now 4 years, I can never use such exchanges, although the transaction fee on exchanges are demanded for by the exchanges and much more higher than the normal transaction fee.

[bitmover]

Or a better way to ask this would be, can a transaction consists of legacy inputs and bech32m outputs and vice versa?

You can check that by yourself just by using any blockexplorer and looking at transactions there

For example, look at this transaction:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/d776c8ab73635c712ecd8e0372bd3de9b31df53420fd937c79b72c04eeb9b520



One legacy input and 4 outputs, to all kind of addresses (bech32, p2sh and legacy)

You just need to use a non custodial wallet, such as Electrum.

[dkbit98]

I know this might be a silly question. Is bech32m address backward compatible with legacy addresses?

Or a better way to ask this would be, can a transaction consists of legacy inputs and bech32m outputs and vice versa?

bech32m is updated variant of regular bech32 addresses and they are still not fully supported by all wallets, but Bitcoin Core and Electrum support sending to bech32m.
Other software and hardware wallets planning to add this feature before Taproot activation.
All this is coming with a new Taproot update and you can check this wiki page to see full support and progress:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bech32_adoption

[ranochigo]

Or a better way to ask this would be, can a transaction consists of legacy inputs and bech32m outputs and vice versa?

Just to address this question, the answer is yes. The inputs within a transaction are not dependent on one another. A transaction is valid as long as you can fulfill the requirements being specified by the script (either, P2PKH, P2WPKH, P2SH, etc). They can all be in the same transaction, the execution of each of the stack should not affect each other.