Just lost $4000 because of addresses starting with "bc1p"

[Guessti]

What is a Bitcoin address that starts with B?
You can identify the type of a bitcoin address by looking at the first letters of it. If it starts with "1", it's a legacy address. If it starts with "3", it's a P2SH address. If it starts with "bc1q", it's a native segwit and if the first 4 letters are "bc1p", it's a taproot address.Oct 18, 2021

Whoever decided this was a good idea is a MORON. (and me too now but damn)

Did you even think about people who verify address by looking at first few letters/numbers of address?

I usually do both, the first few and last few but I mainly always went by the first few digits to make sure I didn't accidently copy/paste wrong address.

Thanks a lot whoever thought it was a good idea to have "bc1p" on every address.  

[1715308565]

1715308565

[1715308565]

1715308565

[Charles-Tim]

You can identify the type of a bitcoin address by looking at the first letters of it. If it starts with "1", it's a legacy address. If it starts with "3", it's a P2SH address. If it starts with "bc1q", it's a native segwit and if the first 4 letters are "bc1p", it's a taproot address.

Pay-to-tap-root is a modified version of native segwit.

Did you even think about people who verify address by looking at first few letters/numbers of address?

I do check the first few, middle and last few characters which I prefer.

I usually do both, the first few and last few but I mainly always went by the first few digits to make sure I didn't accidently copy/paste wrong address.

There is possibility that two or more different addresses would start with the same first few characters and ended to be different addresses.

1EEoqxSat3 followed by the rest of an address can also be 1EEoqxSat3 followed by the rest of another address with less then a months worth of GPU computing power. And with all the GPU rigs not doing much after ETH went PoS there are a lot of them out there not doing much.

[mk4]

So.. how did you lose your money exactly? You sent the funds to the wrong address because of the first 4 characters?

If so, sorry for your loss — but maybe you need to be more careful when sending that high of an amount. Always remember that taking extra 5-10 seconds doublechecking the address wouldn't hurt.

[rat03gopoh]

Whoever decided this was a good idea is a MORON.

Did you even think about people who verify address by looking at first few letters/numbers of address?

Because this is the easiest verification method, after a while people don't do it because they keep shortening the process (underestimating).

I usually do both, the first few and last few but I mainly always went by the first few digits to make sure I didn't accidently copy/paste wrong address.

Thanks a lot whoever thought it was a good idea to have "bc1p" on every address.  

My years in this field have never once thought of creating this type of address, are you a developer? Afaik, the taproot address isn't yet active on the bitcoin network. So it will be good news for you if it becomes active one day and your previous transactions will also be recorded on the blockchain. cmiiw

[Guessti]

Whoever decided this was a good idea is a MORON.

Did you even think about people who verify address by looking at first few letters/numbers of address?

Because this is the easiest verification method, after a while people don't do it because they keep shortening the process (underestimating).

I usually do both, the first few and last few but I mainly always went by the first few digits to make sure I didn't accidently copy/paste wrong address.

Thanks a lot whoever thought it was a good idea to have "bc1p" on every address.  

My years in this field have never once thought of creating this type of address, are you a developer? Afaik, the taproot address isn't yet active on the bitcoin network. So it will be good news for you if it becomes active one day and your previous transactions will also be recorded on the blockchain. cmiiw

Exchanges/payments apps like CoinBase/CashApp/Venmo all using these now I noticed.

I never once sent to wrong address before now.. I haven't been doing too much with crypto the past year or so.. but DAMN I can't believe someone thought this was a good idea. :/

[BlackBoss_]

What is a Bitcoin address that starts with B?

Only B is not enough. Other shitcoins can have their addresses start with B too.

You can identify the type of a bitcoin address by looking at the first letters of it. If it starts with "1", it's a legacy address. If it starts with "3", it's a P2SH address. If it starts with "bc1q", it's a native segwit and if the first 4 letters are "bc1p", it's a taproot address.Oct 18, 2021[/i]

Address types:
- Legacy: start with 1
- Nested Segwit: start with 3
- Native Segwit (also called as Bech32): start with bc1q
- Taproot (also called as Bech32m, a variant of Bech32): start with bc1p

Bech32 adoption
Invoice address
List of address prefixes

Did you even think about people who verify address by looking at first few letters/numbers of address?

I usually do both, the first few and last few but I mainly always went by the first few digits to make sure I didn't accidently copy/paste wrong address.

How to lose your Bitcoins with CTRL-C CTRL-V
Why do you not check all characters of one address for each transaction?

Does it take 1 hour to check a full address from first to last character?

[Charles-Tim]

Afaik, the taproot address isn't yet active on the bitcoin network. So it will be good news for you if it becomes active one day and your previous transactions will also be recorded on the blockchain. cmiiw

You can pay with/to pay-to-tap-root addresses to/from any other type of addresses. All would to be recorded on blockchain. Which means P2TR addresses are valid.

[crwth]

I’m sorry that you had to experience that because of a single mistake that you didn’t check everything on the address. If you were to send it to the wrong address, wouldn’t it have a different ending too? I think you should be able to check it if you have monitored and see what the address you were sent to is because it’s a considerable amount.

Being paranoid, sometimes is better to doublecheck, and make sure that you would receive the money.

[Guessti]

I’m sorry that you had to experience that because of a single mistake that you didn’t check everything on the address. If you were to send it to the wrong address, wouldn’t it have a different ending too? I think you should be able to check it if you have monitored and see what the address you were sent to is because it’s a considerable amount.

Being paranoid, sometimes is better to doublecheck, and make sure that you would receive the money.

Yeah this is literally the first time I ever did this and I been using Bitcoin since 2013

TBH I mostly started off always just checking the first few, then I later in life I decided I would USUALLY check the last few as well.

Never had an issue until someone decided its a good idea to have addresses created with the same first few charatcers.

Like who the hell actually thought that was a good idea? Cmon I'm not the only one who would do this.

Its whatever it still looks stupid to me, having a bunch of Bitcoin addresses having the same first few characters? Jesus man that is dumb.

I'm dumb too and thats the point.

When I was a kid I used to have the first generation Nintendo DS.

The Pokemon Diamond game was the one I had, and I also had an Action Replay.



The Pokemon cartridge would go in the female part, and the male part would go into the Nintendo DS.

If I wanted say:

x999 Rare Candies

or

Lvl 99 Arceus on next wild grass encounter

then that cheat had a specific line of code you had to enter into the Action Replay software on your computer before putting it into the DS.

the cheat codes looked like this, and they could easily be found online back then.



Now,

If I entered a code, and it didn't work when I booted up the game, almost 99% of the time it's because I made a typo in the line.

All it takes is one character to fuck up.

Before I send btc, before I receive btc, usually anything that has to do with verifying addresses...
I scan the fuck out of the address with my eyeballs sometimes until they start to hurt or I'm certain malware hasn't changed the address on me.

I'm old enough to remember GameShark for the GameBoy color:)

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

[Poker Player]

I'm with the OP, I don't know who came up with it but it doesn't seem like a good idea. I usually for small payments, like $50 I look over the characters, and I think that if at some point I make a mistake or get scammed by not checking, I will learn my lesson and from then on I will look at it more carefully. With $4k I would have been more careful, though.

[wxa7115]

What is a Bitcoin address that starts with B?
You can identify the type of a bitcoin address by looking at the first letters of it. If it starts with "1", it's a legacy address. If it starts with "3", it's a P2SH address. If it starts with "bc1q", it's a native segwit and if the first 4 letters are "bc1p", it's a taproot address.Oct 18, 2021

Whoever decided this was a good idea is a MORON. (and me too now but damn)

Did you even think about people who verify address by looking at first few letters/numbers of address?

I usually do both, the first few and last few but I mainly always went by the first few digits to make sure I didn't accidently copy/paste wrong address.

Thanks a lot whoever thought it was a good idea to have "bc1p" on every address.  

It is never nice to lose such an amount of money over such mistake and it is natural that you are mad about it, but since nothing can be done about it maybe it is better to think about possible ways to avoid the same thing happening again.

Many years ago I did the same as you and I only verified the first and last characters of the address I wanted to send a transaction, but since long ago I have not felt secure even with this method and instead I check all the characters, it is slightly more time consuming but it is preferable to do this and lose a little bit of time than to take any risk when such a high amount of money is at stake.

[Maus0728]

The four address formats used in the bitcoin mainnet are all intended to be compatible with one another, so you can send and receive bitcoin using two different formats.

The issue here is that it is not whether the bitcoin address you are sending to has a different format but rather with the wallet's capability to send to or receive from bech32m-type bitcoin addresses.

But yeah, that's a lot of tuition fee for a person who is in the industry for a while.
- https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bech32_adoption

[pooya87]

You didn't say HOW you lost money though!

If the destination created a Taproot address for you and showed it to you so that you can copy it, that means the destination (whether it was your wallet or an exchange or anything else) supported that new address type and any coins sent to that address is already in the destination and can be used.

If the source (your wallet, exchange account, etc.) that you pasted the address in accepted it without throwing any exceptions and successfully sent the transaction, that means it too supported Taproot and successfully sent a valid transaction to the destination YOU gave it.

So I ask again, how did you lose the coins?

[BlackBoss_]

So I ask again, how did you lose the coins?

OP can lose his bitcoins only if he did sent his bitcoins to a wrong receiving address.

Because it is possible to receive bitcoin in all custody and self custody wallets with all transactions from any address types. Hence, it is impossible to not receive his bitcoins if he sent it to any receiving address he has even on centralized exchanges, casinos or merchants.

On centralized platforms, problems are for sending like if they don't support Bech32, Bech32m for withdrawal, we can not withdraw our bitcoins to these types of address. The technical problem is for Bech32 and Bech32m address type only. Nowadays, no issue for transactions between Legacy (1) and Nested Segwit address (3) types on centralized platforms. If any platform has that problem, they scam customers.

[Kakmakr]

My take on this is....

A person or group of developers start a project, thinking that it is going to be the industry standard.... and then competition start to pop up... and then people fight over which project should be the industry standard. 

This happened with old Video machines ...(the battle between VHS & Betamax) ==> https://legacybox.com/blogs/analog/vhs-beat-betamax

[pooya87]

So I ask again, how did you lose the coins?

OP can lose his bitcoins only if he did sent his bitcoins to a wrong receiving address.

Because it is possible to receive bitcoin in all custody and self custody wallets with all transactions from any address types. Hence, it is impossible to not receive his bitcoins if he sent it to any receiving address he has even on centralized exchanges, casinos or merchants.

On centralized platforms, problems are for sending like if they don't support Bech32, Bech32m for withdrawal, we can not withdraw our bitcoins to these types of address. The technical problem is for Bech32 and Bech32m address type only. Nowadays, no issue for transactions between Legacy (1) and Nested Segwit address (3) types on centralized platforms. If any platform has that problem, they scam customers.

The only way that the address could have been wrong is if the destination (I still don't know if destination was OP's wallet or exchange) was using a flawed software to produce the wrong address.
As for Bech32/m differences, any software that doesn't support the newer type would reject it not accept it as valid since the checksum algorithm is different. So it should not have been possible to send to this address in first place if the software didn't support it already.

[rat03gopoh]

Afaik, the taproot address isn't yet active on the bitcoin network. So it will be good news for you if it becomes active one day and your previous transactions will also be recorded on the blockchain. cmiiw

You can pay with/to pay-to-tap-root addresses to/from any other type of addresses. All would to be recorded on blockchain. Which means P2TR addresses are valid.

So in the op's case, supposing he generated that taproot address with the PK, actually he can now recover his bitcoins without compromising the originality after exiting the taproot address and it's valid?

[DdmrDdmr]

Unless you’re holding back due to privacy concerns, as stated before on this thread, you haven’t made the circumstances clear enough for people to uncerstand exactly where the problem you’ve had resides (i.e. implicated types of wallets, expected origin address type, expected recipient address type, address changed due to malware, or else).

Checkout the "Receive to P2TR" column here to see if that may have something to do with it.

[Guessti]

--snip--

Address types:
- Legacy: start with 1
- Nested Segwit: start with 3
- Native Segwit (also called as Bech32): start with bc1q
- Taproot (also called as Bech32m, a variant of Bech32): start with bc1p

Address starts with 3 can represent various things though, such as multi-signature address or any custom spending condition.

Thanks a lot whoever thought it was a good idea to have "bc1p" on every address.  

Check BIP 173.

I'm with the OP, I don't know who came up with it but it doesn't seem like a good idea.

Would you rather see address with prefix 4 (for segwit) or 5 (for taproot) instead which likely already used by altcoin? I've read bech32 specification, so i believe it's better option on long term.

I don't understand, what was the point of changing it or adding all this crap?

What the hell was wrong with just keeping addresses the way they were already?  

What is the purpose, I don't get it. 

[kryptqnick]

I am so sorry for your loss, it's a significant amount of money... Like Charles-Tim, I usually don't fully check the address but I check the first 3-4 characters and the last 3-4 characters to ensure I got the right one. I remember there used to be malware that targeted copy-paste and pasted the wrong address, sometimes even making it an approximation of the original in terms of the first few characters, which is why I always do the basic checking. I still don't fully understand how the op lost the money (was is copy-paste malware or copying a wrong address in the first place because the first few symbols were identical?), and I'm not sure if anything can be done to get the money back (probably not, unless you know to whom that address belongs and can reach out in any way).
As for what was wrong with old addresses, I believe Segwit was at least partially aiming to reduce transaction fees, and given how the fees have been for the last few years, I think it worked.

[bittraffic]

I am so sorry for your loss, it's a significant amount of money... Like Charles-Tim, I usually don't fully check the address but I check the first 3-4 characters and the last 3-4 characters to ensure I got the right one. I remember there used to be malware that targeted copy-paste and pasted the wrong address, sometimes even making it an approximation of the original in terms of the first few characters, which is why I always do the basic checking. I still don't fully understand how the op lost the money (was is copy-paste malware or copying a wrong address in the first place because the first few symbols were identical?), and I'm not sure if anything can be done to get the money back (probably not, unless you know to whom that address belongs and can reach out in any way).
As for what was wrong with old addresses, I believe Segwit was at least partially aiming to reduce transaction fees, and given how the fees have been for the last few years, I think it worked.

Me too I didn't get how mistakenly sent to a wrong address. But I'm guessing he copied a lot of addresses, probably he is sending to many addresses at that time and just paste one that he thought was the right after seeing the first 4 letters.

Sorry for your loss OP. Because of the existence of Segwit and taproot's first 4 letters almost the same, the suggestion to check the last 4 as well will be good to make sure.

Would the Aliases that were suggested before can be truly useful?

[so98nn]

Damn that’s hurtful. I’m also one of the guy who only checks first few and last 4-5 characters of the address. After reading this post I’m going to be very careful next time I send the coins. This is definitely costly lesson for you dude and excellent example for everyone who is reading this.

I think one more way to save our losses is to have tags or labels on the addresses. I use mycelium, you can always name every address which can help identify it next time more easily and safely.

If it’s entirely new recipient then better triple check the whole address and then label it. That’s a good lesson.

[Bitstar_coin]

That must really suck, you should have checked both the first 4 and the last 4 to be extremely sure before sending, mostly this native segwit address can be confusing. This is an eye opener for those people who do not take checking the address before sending it very seriously.
OP I hope you get compensated in some other ways.

[OgNasty]

I never once sent to wrong address before now.. I haven't been doing too much with crypto the past year or so.. but DAMN I can't believe someone thought this was a good idea. :/

Bad things don't happen until they do...  I am sorry that this happened to you.  It sucks to lose money.  I think most of us have been there though.  Bitcoin is a learning experience and hopefully you've learned a lesson that will end up saving you more than $4,000 down the line.  My advice would be to use this as a learning experience and continue looking into what else you may not know about Bitcoin so that you can have more knowledge that will someday pay dividends to you.  I also wish you good luck in locating the receiver and maybe recovering the funds somehow.

[Obari]

I relatively don't pay any singles attention to the wallet address because I focus almost all my attention to the safety of my own coin rather than bother over the first and last digits and alphabets of another address.
I've seen several different addresses with same starting figures and rather than focus on this, I rather focus on educating people at every instance I get the importance of using a decentralized wallet and how t store the key phrase safely as not your key not your coins.

So I will suggest that rather than focusing your energy on the address, you should rather channel suggest energy to making sure your wallet is safe and secure.

[Hispo]

-snip-

Those were way simpler times, so much nostalgia, when the 3D was a novelty.
By the way it is funny how you took your time and explain carefully this example using video games from over a decade ago, using images and all.
I have got the impression that you are a video game enthusiast even to this day. 

[Artemis3]

So, the point of this thread was to insult one of the moderators of this forum? Bech32 is a great improvement but this reminds me of the people blaming Bitcoin from a mistake THEY make. Transactions are final, there are no reversals and that's how we like it. That's why you just don't make transactions without triple checking the address.

[Vickysagar]

Yeah, I still check every transaction because I'm scared to lose my money. Sorry for your loss, I imagine things like that every time I send Bitcoin.

[DaveF]

As I pointed out just the other day while discussing something else, creating an address with just the 1st few characters the same is trivial. As they jet longer it dos become more difficult but for just a few it's just about 0 time to do it so in general just checking bc1p is pointless anyway.

The issue with addresses that start with 3 is that other coins have used it for their P2SH and that caused its own issues.

bc1p has been in use for years, if you have regularly been using BTC you have seen it before.
If you are new to crypto, checking more of the address should be just something that is taught / mentioned.

-Dave

[Lucius]

I would never blame the tool, but the one who uses it without being familiar with all its features. Therefore, to say that someone is a moron for allowing us to pay less transaction fees is nothing more than ignorance and disrespect for all the developers working to improve Bitcoin.

It has never happened to me that I send BTC to the wrong address, but that is because every time before the transaction I check everything at least three times, and for larger amounts this means that I check every character in the address, no matter how paranoid it may seem to someone. An expensive mistake, but I hope a lesson well learned and a warning for everyone who will read this topic.

[NotATether]

Like who the hell actually thought that was a good idea? Cmon I'm not the only one who would do this.

I can understand your frustration, but this is why I do a quick eye-scan of all the characters from left-to-right in an address (which lasts for a few seconds max) at least once to make sure it matches what's in the browser or app before I sign any transaction. You should get into a habit of checking addresses as well that as well.

Bitcoin addresses were not designed to eyeball the first few characters only. It also happened occasionally with vanity addresses starting with 1.

[EarnOnVictor]

It hurts if this is true, you need to be careful and more sensitive next time.

I guess many who replied did not understand what the OP is trying to express here due to the poor way of construction. However, based on my understanding of what is being conveyed, the OP never sent any money but was actually expecting payment through his BTC address, and mistakenly copied a wrong BTC address which eventually got the paying party angry or suspicious thereby terminating the payment.

Who is to blame here? The OP and the paying party of course! OP in the sense that he/she shouldn't have made mistake with the address. And the paying party in the sense that they should have been emphatic about the strictness of the BTC address needed, and told him/her to change the address to the preferred one.

Whoever decided this was a good idea is a MORON. (and me too now but damn)

Not at all, such people are even genius because each of the addresses has its benefits.

I usually do both, the first few and last few but I mainly always went by the first few digits to make sure I didn't accidently copy/paste wrong address.

Which makes it your fault. With different BTC addresses for different purposes, I always used the BTC address that is from a centralized exchange for any financial transaction that deals with companies or parties that demand my trust. Sorry, you learned the hard way, you have to be careful while copying and pasting addresses next time.

[kamvreto]

I can understand your frustration, but this is why I do a quick eye-scan of all the characters from left-to-right in an address (which lasts for a few seconds max) at least once to make sure it matches what's in the browser or app before I sign any transaction. You should get into a habit of checking addresses as well that as well.

Bitcoin addresses were not designed to eyeball the first few characters only. It also happened occasionally with vanity addresses starting with 1.

the outdated trick, but works fine. I also apply this habit before making any transaction with any nominal. Because some of my friends experienced the same incident as Op. Wrote a few letters and was also attacked by copy-paste malware which changed to the scammer's address. It is very frustrating when the address that was thought to be correct turns out to be several wrongs, in the end the assets are lost and cannot be returned. Double-checking would be a good alternative.

[Xxmodded]

I am sorry with your loss dude, seems all Bitcoin address beginning with "bc1p" are BTC with segwit and available on all exchange market right now, for next time be careful and check detail again with your Bitcoin address destination have correct or not. Usually saved with all address used for withdrawing not only Bitcoin but also several altcoin.

You can saved all wallet withdrawing destination how keep securing and less mistake when sending your fund, usually in  Binance you can saved with your address withdrawal and don't need to copy again for less mistake or wrong address make, cryptocurrency not refund our assets when wrong address withdrawing but other currency digital like PayPal possibility to refund if wrong email for sending.

You can scan with QR code for sending or withdrawing assets to other wallet, but you have access trough mobile phone with exchange account or cold wallet.

[Antonas1]

I don't understand how you can send Bitcoins to the wrong address (if that's the case). Because you didn't explain it in detail.
I myself always double-check the whole address when I make a transaction, even if I just copy and paste the address or do a scan. It didn't take long to re-check everything.

[m2017]

So.. how did you lose your money exactly? You sent the funds to the wrong address because of the first 4 characters?

If so, sorry for your loss — but maybe you need to be more careful when sending that high of an amount. Always remember that taking extra 5-10 seconds doublechecking the address wouldn't hurt.

Exactly. Need to check all the characters of the address completely, or even better, several times. Especially if the amount sent is significant.

I also didn't understand from OP's story what exactly happened to him. But he could write a couple of lines about it and even attach a link to the lost transaction (why hide it if it is already lost). My guesses about what happened are roughly the same as yours.

Crypto currencies are not pampering and you need to be ready to take responsibility for your actions, including material ones.

[Mpamaegbu]

I quite agree that the bc1p wallet address (or any other) may not be perfect as there isn't any conception of man that doesn't have its demerit. However, like what user mk4 asked in post three here which hasn't still been answered. Let me mildly reiterate. OP, we still want to know how you lost that four grand. Not that I doubt your story but it's so that the rest of us will know how to escape a similar situation in future.

[hZti]

I quite agree that the bc1p wallet address (or any other) may not be perfect as there isn't any conception of man that doesn't have its demerit. However, like what user mk4 asked in post three here which hasn't still been answered. Let me mildly reiterate. OP, we still want to know how you lost that four grand. Not that I doubt your story but it's so that the rest of us will know how to escape a similar situation in future.

I would not hope to get that much of an explanation. The OP simply lost his bitcoins because of a mistake that he made. Now he is blaming others, even if the only solution for his mistake would have been to check if he sends to the correct bitcoin adress. You can also blame people for making dollar bills look the same and then say you gave away a 100 USD bill instead of a 10 USD bill.

[The Cryptovator]

I look over the addresses I copied. Starting and ending with a few digits or letters. It is to verify the address, not to determine the type of address. You must choose the type of address where you will deposit or you should be aware of the type of address by looking at the address. If you sent funds to the wrong type of address, you will lose them if you do not have access to the wallet. But I still don't understand how you lost your money.

[headingnorth]

I always verify all characters of the address, especially when moving any substantial or larger amount of bitcoin.

It's a good habit to get into and really doesn't take long at all. Just takes a couple minutes at most, and after you do a few
it becomes fast and easy to verify all characters in the address.

I also do a test send to the address with small amount first (couple dollars), and if that goes through I will send the rest of the funds.

[Osama Maaz]

Good Information about BTC Addresses,

In this crypto field we are the banks of your own funds and sending money to wrong address is generally unrecoverable , So before sending i personally takes some time to check first 5 letters and least 5 letters of address before transferring my funds and it a good advice for every crypto users .

[_act_]

Not that I doubt your story but it's so that the rest of us will know how to escape a similar situation in future.

Check and double check the address that someone send you. Also check and double the address that you want to use to send bitcoin to someone after you have pasted the address. The mistake the OP did would likely be because he send bitcoin to a wrong address.

If you want to send bitcoin to someone on an exchange, some exchanges may not yet support taproot address, use old address like bech32 instead.

[Mpamaegbu]

Not that I doubt your story but it's so that the rest of us will know how to escape a similar situation in future.

The mistake the OP did would likely be because he send bitcoin to a wrong address.

Sorry, my question was for the OP. I don't want to make assumptions on what happened just like you did there, that was why I directed it to them to answer. I don't want a "maybe" response. OP's response will be saving many a user here the headache of passing through a repeated situation of theirs. So, avail them that space to respond.

[jokers10]

...
Like who the hell actually thought that was a good idea? Cmon I'm not the only one who would do this.
...

That's why it is so important to spread the word about bitcoin, about that operations in its blockchain are irreversible, about what trustless system means, about how all is working in there. I'm sure I still understand just a part of all that, but even my small knowledge makes me recheck several times payment address each time I send any crypto and even then I worry until I see the transaction in blockchain in correct address. Yeap, I'm paranoid a bit.