How do Bitcoin Cash wallet addresses work?

luno crypto wallet with the bitcoin cash logo on it and an address pin on top

If you’ve added a Bitcoin Cash (BCH) wallet - and you create a wallet address to send crypto - there are some important things to keep in mind when it comes to BCH addresses at Luno.

The background

BCH was created in 2017 after a fork of Bitcoin (BTC), so BCH legacy address formats are the same as normal BTC address formats. To distinguish itself from BTC, and to avoid confusion and accidental mistakes when sending funds from one crypto platform to another, BCH introduced a new address called CashAddr (cash address format).

The detail

Luno uses the new BCH CashAddr format (without the prefix), and as a result, does not support legacy addresses. The official CashAddr format has a "bitcoincash:" prefix, but most exchanges and wallets do not include it. Neither does Luno.

Here’s an example of the correct format to use:

Supported format

CashAddr (without prefix): pp06e7h69y8pk5hncew6j9yhmhx5478m55yhjm9zpu

Unsupported formats

CashAddr (with prefix): bitcoincash:pp06e7h69y8pk5hncew6j9yhmhx5478m55yhjm9zpu
Legacy: 3AQuLex6ip4knGSEfivnj4nuCLUEcfV38X

Note

An error message will be displayed to you if you try to send BCH to legacy addresses or to CashAddr addresses using a prefix.

Tip

Use the following tool to convert your legacy address to the new address format: https://cashaddr.bitcoincash.org

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