Can I send BTC from an address like bc1 to an legacy address (1 prefix)

[ravianwong]

Can I send BTC from any bitcoin address type to another any bitcoin address type?
native segwit (bc1) to legacy address (1)
Does 1 to bc1 works also?

Would appreciate some answers. Thank you.

[OmegaStarScream]

Yes, any wallet that supports bech32 (bc1) should allow you to send to legacy addresses (starts with 1).

You can also send from 1 to bc1 but not all wallets support that, so it depends on which one you're using.

[Charles-Tim]

If you are unable to send from one address to another, likely you are using an exchange, an exchange that is not supporting sending to native segwit (bc1) addresses should be seen as useless. OmegaStarScream has already answered you, you can send from any bitcoin address type to another, be it compressed or uncompressed legacy, nested segwit, or native segwit.

[hosemary]

It has been more than 5 years since segwit soft fork has been introduced. So, almost any wallet should allow you to send bitcoin from legacy address to bech32 address and vice-versa.
If there's a wallet or an exchange that doesn't allow you to do so, you should avoid it. Because it would mean that they haven't updated their system even after 5 years.

Bitcoin protocol allows sending bitcoin from any address type to any address type.

[ravianwong]

Yes, any wallet that supports bech32 (bc1) should allow you to send to legacy addresses (starts with 1).

You can also send from 1 to bc1 but not all wallets support that, so it depends on which one you're using.

Very appreciate for the answer.

[ABCbits]

If you are unable to send from one address to another, likely you are using an exchange, an exchange that is not supporting sending to native segwit (bc1) addresses should be seen as useless.

Not only useless has limited functionality, it's likely your wallet / exchange hasn't been updated in long time which means there's higher security risk.

[Pmalek]

If you are unable to send from one address to another, likely you are using an exchange, an exchange that is not supporting sending to native segwit (bc1) addresses should be seen as useless.

It's unfortunately not just exchanges that are sometimes late with adding support for Native SegWit addresses, it's also crypto exchanges and similar centralized services. This is not the place to mention any names, nor is it important at this point, but a very popular casino that has been around for many years was still not supporting Bech32 addresses the last time I checked. And it's a site I am sure everyone who is into gambling has heard of.

[khaled0111]

Segwit, like taproot, is a soft fork which means it maintains backward compatibility. Nothing on the protocol level prevents sending from segwit to legacy. Just use a wallet which supports segwit (most of them do).

A bit off-topic but regarding exchanges/wallet which didn't upgrade their systems to support segwit back in 2017/2018, most of them did it intentionally to support BCH and push their customers to use it instead of BTC.

[pooya87]

Segwit, like taproot, is a soft fork which means it maintains backward compatibility. Nothing on the protocol level prevents sending from segwit to legacy. Just use a wallet which supports segwit (most of them do).

To be clear if you want to send to a Taproot address you should definitely upgrade your wallet (assuming the wallet software has the feature) because the new address format is slightly different than the SegWit version 0 even though it looks the same.
In other words if you enter a Taproot address in an old wallet that supported SegWit, it should reject it for having an invalid checksum (the new address format uses different details when computing checksum).

[seoincorporation]

Even if the address are in a different format, they run on in the same blockchain, and that's why you are able to do it without problems.

What you can't do is to send cons from 1 blockchain to another, lets say, send BTC to a dogecoin address, that's not possible because they are different blockchains and if you want to swap better those coins then you need an exchange.

There are other kind of address that starts with 3, and those ones are valid for the bitcoin blockchain too. 

[DannyHamilton]

Since this is the "Technical Support" section of the forum, it's probably worthwhile to point out a few things:

1. There are no addresses in the blockchain.  There are no addresses in the actual transactions that are sent between peers.

Addresses are an abstraction that are created by the user-interface of the software that you use (whether that's an exchange, a wallet, a casino, or something else). They exist only to make it easier for HUMANS to talk about transferring control over value.  Therefore, the only limitations on whether or not you can send bitcoins that you control "to a particular address" are limitations put on you by the software you are choosing to use (either because that software is out-dated or because the creators of the software have made a decision not to support it).

Another important thing to be aware of if we are talking about the technical aspects of Bitcoin is that:

2. YOU DO NOT SEND FROM AN ADDRESS

That's not how bitcoin works.  I know that those that aren't familiar with the inner workings of Bitcoin like to think of it as a bank account, but it just isn't true.  You spend unspent transaction outputs.  There is no "from address". Bitcoins in a single transaction may have been previously received using multiple addresses, or no addresses at all.