Author: Michael Grønager 2012-02-20 11:17:01
Published on: 2012-02-20T11:17:01+00:00
A proposal has been made to change the "network id" portion of Bitcoin addresses to a more fundamental "version" that indicates the network and chain the address can be used for. The proposed structure for Bitcoin addresses would be base58-encoded as [one-byte network ID][20-byte hash][one-byte address class][3-byte checksum]. This would reduce the possibility of using a faulty address from 1 to 4 billion to 1 to 24 million, making it more secure. However, old clients would render new addresses as useless but still maintain their old familiar look. This proposal is currently being discussed on the BIP-13 wiki page.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T03:00:16.394591+00:00