Cashaddr

BCH News Roundup: Transactions Spike, Cashaddr Support and Developer Congress

10/08/2019 by Idelto Editor

BCH News Roundup: Transactions Spike, Cashaddr Support, and a Developer Congress

The last seven days have been busy within the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem with a slew of announcements and developments. Kraken exchange recently added the BCH-based Cashaddr address format and Coinbase open-sourced a utility that makes it easy to convert between Base58 and Cashaddr addresses. Additionally, the New Hampshire-based Anypay payment processor is bolstering merchant adoption by offering 10% bitcoin cashback for purchases through their point of sale services.

Also Read: Exploring the SLP Token Universe Built on the Bitcoin Cash Chain

Bitcoin Cash Markets Hold Steady While Transactions Per Day Keep Rising

In the past week, the BCH market capitalization ($5.55 billion) has surpassed LTC but BCH markets are down roughly 7.8% during this period. Each BCH is swapping for $309 per coin and there’s around $1.19 billion in global bitcoin cash volume. The top exchanges trading the most BCH on Saturday, August 10 include Coinbene, Digifinex, Hitbtc, Bibox, and Okex. Right now the top trading pairs swapped against BCH are USDT (52%), BTC (28%), USD (8.7%), ETH (6.8%), and KRW (2%).

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One of the biggest metrics rising over the last few weeks for BCH has been the number of daily transactions. BCH miners have been processing an average of 35-40,000 transactions (txn) per day and there have been multiple 24-hour periods above 60,000 txn per day. The influx of daily transactions is likely attributed to the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) tokens which have seen significant usage in recent weeks.

Kraken Adds Cashaddr and Coinbase Open Sources a Cashaddr Utility

On August 8, the San Francisco-based Kraken exchange revealed that the trading platform is switching over to BCH Cashaddr-based addresses for all deposits starting August 15th. The cryptocurrency ecosystem transitioning from the legacy address format to the Cashaddr format is very important to the BCH ecosystem. The Cashaddr address system was deployed on January 14, 2018, and since then many third-party service providers have adopted the format. Bitcoin ABC lead developer Amaury Séchet explained on Thursday that he had contacted Kraken a few weeks ago and asked them to switch to Cashaddr. “I am happy to see Kraken implement this change — It benefits users by helping them avoid mistakes when depositing funds,” Séchet remarked.

Kraken is switching to CashAddr address format for BCH deposits. This is a win for #BitcoinCash users.

Thank you @krakenfx for the high-quality #BCH support! https://t.co/gj1ZuSC0qH

— Bitcoin ABC (@Bitcoin_ABC) August 8, 2019

In addition to Kraken adding the Cashaddr format, software engineer Josh Ellithorpe and Coinbase open-sourced a utility to convert between base58 and Cashaddr BCH addresses. The news was welcomed by the BCH community and people hope the utility introduced by Coinbase and Ellithorpe will bring more visibility to the Cashaddr format. Electron Cash developer Calin Culianu (Nilac the grim) explained that there’s open source code for Cashaddr in Python, JS, C++, Go, and more as well.

Anypay Offers BCH Cashback Promo

On Friday the crypto payment processing startup Anypay Global announced a 10% BCH back bonus for people spending bitcoin cash using the company’s system. The following day Reddit user u/Bitcointippingpoint revealed that there are 30 merchants in New Hampshire that accept crypto through Anypay and 27 of these retailers accept bitcoin cash. New Hampshire is known as the “Free State” for its large number of libertarian residents.

Spend $BCH, Get #BCHback – Grow adoption and get instant rewards. Easy: https://t.co/uCn91ychVk

— Anypay (@Anypay_) August 8, 2019

Seven of the BCH merchants are located in Keene, says Bitcointippingpoint and another six BCH-accepting merchants are located in Portsmouth. “14 of the 30 have accepted a payment within the last week,” the Reddit user announced. “Can attest to using this at the Fresh Press in Portsmouth, New Hampshire — It’s pretty sweet,” explained another Reddit user discussing the 10% BCH cashback promotion for purchases through Anypay’s point-of-sale. Anypay also provides a map of all the crypto accepting merchants

Developer Tendo Pein Reveals Spending Constraints With OP_Checkdatasig

This week the creator of the BCH-based programming language called Spedn wrote a blog post on Honest.cash which detailed some interesting schemes that can be developed using the opcode OP_Chechdatasig. On August 8, Tendo Pein told the BCH development community that one of the limitations of BCH Script was that you can only specify if one can spend the coin. However, people assumed there was no way of adding spending constraints but Pein shows how it’s now possible. Pein shows three types of constraints like a simple scheme like a Pay to Public Key Hash. Then the developer shows some more complex ideas that can be achieved and uses the Spedn language to show the benefits more clearly. During the end of the post which shows another example of a spending constraint dubbed “the fanciest,” Pein demonstrates how OP_Return tokens could be miner enforceable. This particular demonstration could make OP_Return tokens built on top of the chain stronger by backing them with the network’s security.

Txhighway Visualizer Adds New Features

With the number of daily transactions picking up on the BCH chain, many supporters noticed a few issues with the transaction visualizer Txhighway.com. Since then the site’s maintainer fixed the website’s Websockets and updated the page. The Txhighway website shows a large 32-lane highway for the Bitcoin Cash network while the Bitcoin Core (BTC) network has two lanes available and during periods of BTC congestion the website gives a unique perspective of the problem. Now there’s new logos, no reference to older BSV projects, and there’s now a Badger button available for donations. Additionally, with the popularity of SLP tokens on the rise, the highway also shows Spice token transactions on the move as well.

Bitcoin Cash City Conference and the BCH Developer Congress

Overall, the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem and its participants continue to truck forward after celebrating the recent two-year anniversary of BCH. In addition to the anniversary celebrations, BCH supporters are gearing up for the Bitcoin Cash City two-day conference next month in North Queensland, Australia. On August 8, Cointext founder Vin Armani announced an open call to all the developers who work on BCH infrastructure and provide BCH products and services to attend the first “Developer Congress.”

This is an open call for developers of products and services that support #BitcoinCash to attend the first Bitcoin Cash Developer Congress, taking place in Australia from September 3rd to September 5th.

The Developer Congress is in coordination with @BitcoinCashCity Conference. pic.twitter.com/1BGu8mQzaD

— Ⓥin Ⓐrmani (@vinarmani) August 8, 2019

The BCH developers’ meeting will take place between September 3-5 in coordination with the Bitcoin Cash City conference. This weekend, news.Bitcoin.com spoke with Armani about the event and what will be discussed.

“The Bitcoin Cash Developer Congress is an initiative, sponsored by Bitmain, with the primary purpose of bringing together developers from across the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem to discuss and debate upcoming projects and protocols which will be put into production within the next 12 months,” the Cointext founder explained.

What do you think about all the events within the Bitcoin Cash space over the last seven days? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Jamie Redman, Txhighway, and Markets.Bitcoin.com

Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry.

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Crescent Cash Becomes the Third BCH Light Client to Adopt Cash Accounts

02/04/2019 by Idelto Editor

There’s a new open source bitcoin cash (BCH) wallet called Crescent Cash which uses the Cash Accounts protocol by default. The new application was designed by the programmer Pokkst who built the wallet for simplicity by allowing BCH users to send funds to a specific username as opposed to a long alphanumeric address.

Also read: Bitcoin Cash Markets and Network Gather Strong Momentum in Q1

Crescent Cash Wallet Supports Cash Accounts by Default

On Monday, April 1, the programmer behind the recently published Bchgallery wallet released a new wallet called Crescent Cash, a light client dedicated to the Cash Accounts username system. Crescent Cash is open source and noncustodial like traditional BCH wallets and the application also supports the standard BCH address format Cashaddr. The application’s first release for Android is available on the Google Play store and Pokkst believes the wallet is simple and secure while combining the “simplicity of traditional, centralized money apps with the security of trustless Bitcoin wallets.” Pokkst explained on the Reddit forum r/btc that he spent a few sleepless nights powered by soda while he was coding up the application for release.

The app, which is only 6.5 megabytes in size, takes just a minute to download and roughly another minute to create a new wallet. The Crescent Cash wallet creates a Cash Accounts username after you choose the handle you desire. After deciding on a username, the application registers the new name with the Cash Accounts system. Users can immediately see that the name was broadcast into the Bitcoin Cash blockchain after the wallet has been created on Crescent Cash. While testing the application’s functionality, I registered the name ‘Jamiecrypto’ with the Crescent Cash app. While the transaction is unconfirmed it doesn’t have an associated number. Following confirmation, the registered name ‘Jamiecrypto#12871’ was filed into the BCH chain for the rest of time.

Crescent Cash Becomes the Third Light Client to Implement the Username System

To send BCH to another Cash Accounts user, simply type their username into the address field which also supports a standard address and QR code scanning abilities. With Crescent Cash, the wallet’s private key is stored on the device and the app’s website notes that the wallet provider has no access to recovery seeds. Because Crescent Cash is a very basic wallet with the bare minimum functions, the user has to open the settings section within the wallet in order to jot down the mnemonic seed phrase. The application also provides an xpub address that can be used for other compatible wallet applications. It’s important to write down the mnemonic seed phrase because like unlike other wallets the client does not make you verify that it is correct.

The Crescent Cash wallet is fairly intuitive, even for people just getting into the cryptocurrency space. The client with the predominately green and white design is very similar to Ifwallet and Yenom wallet’s simplicity. Right now the Cash Accounts protocol designed by Jonathan Silverblood is still very new and the system needs more time to catch on. However, Crescent Cash is the third wallet to implement Silverblood’s Cash Accounts protocol following Bchgallery and the Chinese BCH light client Ifwallet. Many of the new BCH-fueled ideas like the Simple Ledger Protocol and others are still nascent concepts and it will take time for them to make a lasting impression. The noncustodial Crescent Cash wallet is helping bolster the idea of more simplistic usernames within the crypto ecosystem. Pokkst has detailed that the next release, Crescent Cash v1.1.0, is already in the works with “a lot of improvements.”

What do you think about the open source Crescent Cash wallet for Android? Let us know what you think about this project in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: Bitcoin.com does not endorse this product/service. Review editorials are intended for informational purposes only. This is the first release of this particular software and early versions can often be buggy. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the mentioned company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com or the author is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Crescent Cash, and Cash Accounts.

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Everything You Should Know About Bitcoin Address Formats

18/02/2019 by Idelto Editor

A wallet address, comprising a string of 26-35 alphanumeric characters, is all it takes to send and receive bitcoin. Any bitcoin address can be used to transfer cryptocurrency to any other address on the network, provided the sender’s wallet software supports that address type. With multiple address formats to choose from, and wallet providers and exchanges only supporting certain address types, it pays to familiarize yourself with the differences.

Also read: Bitcoin Cash-Focused Ifwallet Implements Cash Accounts Name System

Address Formats Are the Internet Protocol of Bitcoin

Just as there are multiple versions of the Internet Protocol, such as IPv4 and IPv6, there are multiple bitcoin address formats. Most of the time, these don’t come into conflict with one another, with transactions zipping seamlessly across the network between custodial and non-custodial wallets. There are three Bitcoin Core address formats to choose from, P2PKH, P2SH, and bech32, with only a handful of service providers supporting all of them. There’s a good chance your preferred wallet or exchange doesn’t support at least one of these formats, with bech32 the likeliest to be omitted.

Learning the pros, cons and quirks of each address format will enable you to choose a compatible bitcoin wallet, exchange or platform. It will also furnish you with a deeper knowledge of Bitcoin’s inner workings, and reveal the trade-offs that come with each format in terms of security, flexibility and functionality.

P2PKH or Legacy Address Format

If your bitcoin address starts with a 1, you’re using a P2PKH or legacy address, for example 1BvBMSEYstWetqTFn5Au4m4GFg7xJaNVN2. This was Bitcoin’s original address format and it still works faithfully to this day. P2PKH, incidentally, stands for Pay-to-Pubkey Hash i.e pay to a hash of the recipient’s public key. Legacy addresses are not segwit compatible, but you can still send BTC from a P2PKH address to a segwit address without any problems. The average fee when sending from a P2PKH address is likely to be higher than when sending from a segwit address, however, because legacy address transactions are larger in size.

P2SH Address Format

P2SH addresses are structured similarly to P2PKH, but start with a 3 instead of a 1, for example 3J98t1WpEZ73CNmQviecrnyiWrnqRhWNLy. P2SH, which stands for pay to script hash, enables more elaborate functionality than legacy addresses. The P2SH script function is most commonly used for multisig addresses which can specify, for example, that multiple digital signatures are required to authorize the transaction. This address format is also used to enable non-native segwit transactions using a process known as P2WPKH-in-P2SH. The average person sending and receiving coins doesn’t need to concern themselves with the more complex functionality that the P2SH format can bestow: all that matters is that this address type is widely supported and can be used to send funds to both P2PKH and bech32 addresses.

Bech32 Address Format

Bech32 addresses look distinctly different from the P2-style addresses. Each one starts with “bc1” and is longer than a legacy or P2SH address on account of this prefix. Bech32 is the native segwit address format, and is supported by the majority of software and hardware wallets, but a minority of exchanges. Ledger and Keepkey wallets currently don’t support bech32, for instance, and while most exchanges enable sending funds to bech32 addresses, they don’t enable users to receive them with this format. At present, less than 1 percent of BTC is stored in bech32 addresses, although this number is increasing slowly.

Bitcoin Cash Address Formats

Bitcoin Cash addresses can follow either the legacy format (which starts with a 1) or more commonly the Cash Address (Cash Addr) format. It’s based on bech32 and starts with ‘q’ or ‘bitcoincash:q’. BCH wallets can support both formats, with tools enabling users to switch between Cash Addr and legacy formats. The primary reason for using the Cash Addr format is to distinguish BCH from BTC and thereby prevent funds being sent to the wrong address.

Which BTC and BCH address formats do you most commonly use? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and P2sh.info.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

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Bitcoin in Brief Thursday: ICO Scares Investors with Ghost Prank

19/04/2018 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin in Brief Thursday: Another ICO Ghosts with $50 Million - Sends Thanx from Beer Beach

Today we’ve simply given-in to no nutritional value, guilty pleasure, lowest common denominator: bitcoin-related crime news. Start your day with laughs and head scratching, as we examine the purported Savedroid ICO exit scam, an international bitcoin heist escape, the fury of a scorned woman, a bear spray robbery, and some whole food violence.

Also read: Bitcoin in Brief Wednesday: Pornhub? We’ve Never Heard of Pornhub

Savedroid Appeared to Ghost With Investors’ Money

This can’t be real, right? This must be a publicity gimmick. Well, in any event, German online news source Wirtschafts Woche documents how Savedroid has apparently taken the money and run. The company website was replaced with a meme picture, “Aannnd it’s gone.” Founder and CEO Yassin Hankir tweeted a picture of himself on a beach, long gone. All this after having raised $50 million in an ICO.

Promises of artificial intelligence, curated portfolios, and a native credit card proved too much for investors, and they poured in money. Stranger than fiction.

Reads Like a Movie Script

A suspect involved in an Icelandic heist involving a dozen perpetrators, 600 missing bitcoin mining rigs, was able to evade authorities after they’d managed to arrest him. “Sindri Thor Stefansson” the BBC reported, “escaped the low-security prison through a window and fled to Sweden on a passenger plane that was also carrying Iceland’s prime minister, local media report. The ticket had another man’s name and he was identified through CCTV video. The stolen computers, which are still missing, are worth $2m (£1.45m).” It appears Mrs. Stefansson was also arrested, but he didn’t have time to circle back evidently.

Bitcoin in Brief Thursday: Savedroid Scams Investors for $50 Million — Sindri Thor Stefansson

Hell Hath No Fury

Speaking of angry women, the broader ecosystem has been accused as being too male. Well, here’s Tina Jones breaking through the digital glass ceiling. According to WGN, Ms. Jones was “charged after allegedly paying thousands of dollars via bitcoin to a company on the dark web to murder the wife of a man she had an affair with, according to officials. Tina Jones, 31, appeared at bond court Wednesday morning where a judge set bond at $250,000. She was charged with one felony count of solicitation of murder-for-hire.”

Bearly Escaped with Bitcoin ATM

The Irving Patch, a Texas local online news source, are attempting to help police find two men. Police claim they “entered a store […] and sprayed a clerk with bear spray before making off with cash from a Bitcoin machine …. They can be seen in security footage spraying the store clerk with bear spray, a powerful form of pepper spray, before heading to the back of the store where the Bitcoin machine was located ….The clerk was taken to a hospital for treatment after being sprayed but was later released.”

Well, He Warned Him

Government crackdown on legitimate cryptocurrency exchanges usually receive very positive media coverage. What both government and mainstream media often miss is how less online exchanges necessarily means more face-to-face encounters, which can be dangerous for reasons bitcoin traders are well familiar. Case in point: a Miami man wished to turn $30,000 cash into more than that in bitcoin. He met supposed crypto dealers at a public place, a local Whole Foods parking lot. The fellow with the cash brought a gun just in case something went wrong. Turned out to be a pretty good idea. He was jumped for the money, and as he was attacked, yelled to his attacker, “Back off, I have a weapon,” the Miami Herald details. The attacker didn’t listen, and was shot. He was later arrested after being taken to a local hospital.

Bitcoiners Wanted at Citi

A recent now hiring Linkedin post detailed how Citi is looking for a “Senior Vice President, Senior AML Compliance Officer —Emerging Risk,” in Tampa, Florida. “Knowledge of cryptocurrency and bitcoin monitoring” and “Certified Bitcoin Professional Certification a plus,” are among the job qualifications and requirements.

More Spring Cleaning

Clearing off some smaller stories, Riot Blockchain has been subpoenaed. The Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippines issued a rather blunt warning about what it terms bitcoin “schemes” to defraud investors. It lists more than a dozen companies by name, and proceeds to go through steps to identify future scams. Josh Ellithorpe tweeted how he “Just released my first open source project at Coinbase. If you need Cashaddr support for your Ruby app then you should check it out!” here.

Do you think Savedroid really scammed its investors? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Special thanks to Kai Sedgwick and Avi Mizrahi for sourcing.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

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Trezor to Implement Bitcoin Cash Addresses

02/04/2018 by Idelto Editor

Trezor to Implement Cashaddr for Bitcoin Cash Addresses

After seeming to be outright hostile to incorporating Cashaddr, a way to distinguish easily between bitcoin core and bitcoin cash addresses, popular hardware cold storage wallet company Trezor confirmed its integration is on the way.

Also read: Crypto History Part 1: 400 Million Billion Billion, Beer, and a Murderous Plot

Cold Storage Wallet Maker Trezor to Integrate Cashaddr for BCH

Twitter bitcoin cash advocate, Jason Elliott, began tweeting to hardware, cold storage wallet makers as to when their users could expect integration of Cashaddr, a bitcoin cash (BCH) ecosystem adopted standard for addresses to help limit confusion. Within the thread, Bach N. of Trezor responded, affirming Cashaddr to be in development for Trezor. His response came complete with a Github link, which appeared to confirm the tweet.

The Github leads to a Trezor MCU started the beginning of this year. Jochen Hoenicke is the developer/author of Cashaddr #285. It has three commits, and includes Satoshi Labs’ Pavol Rusnak as a repository participant. Though it stops at the end of February, the most detail comes around the middle of that month.

“This needs to be done outside the firmware for cashaddr support,” Mr. Hoenicke explains, “Webwallet: compute cashaddr addresses from xpub. Note that only the last step from hashed public key to address needs to be changed. The webwallet checks that the address the Trezor returns is as expected. This check should also allow 1.. addresses so that it works with older firmware (so we don’t have to deploy both at the same time); allow cashaddr as send to address. The firmware supports both and both use SPENDADDRESS. The only difference is the confirmation message given to the user; the transaction format did not change at all.”

If true, it’s an interesting turn of events in the mini-drama surrounding the issue. Summer of last year, just prior to the fork creating bitcoin cash, it was Mr. Rusnak who warned through Github, “I suggest to change the address version to something different, so it is obvious the address is a Bitcoin Cash address. (It can start with C for example). Don’t forget to change also address version for P2SH!” It would turn out to be fateful advice, advice that, for whatever reason, was not initially followed.

Ideology Aside, Trezor Usually Yields to Customers

Recognized as a lead developer of bitcoin cash, Amaury Séchet (otherwise known as deadalnix), responded to Mr. Rusnak’s warning, “Agreed. I have a plan to change the address format. Changing the address format is expensive, so I would like to investigate various other option than just changing the prefix before settling on something. I would also have to convince other in the space that this is a good address format,” and eventually Cashaddr became that option.

Trezor, as soon as two weeks ago, responded to long time Reddit user u/normal_rc on the popular bitcoin cash forum, r/btc, about how the company was just outright refusing to add the address change. In response, the Trezor cofounder tweeted “This mess was made by bad architectural decision of [BCH] team. We warned them, they knew about the issues and they decided to ignore it. I refuse any responsibility for it. Cashaddr support is in standard development process and it’ll be ready when done.”

Though it reads as hostile, it does leave the door open to eventual implementation. Combined with the even more recent acknowledgment and Github activity, bitcoin cash users continue to have reasons to be hopeful about the coin’s future prospects.

Do you support Trezor’s eventual move to accommodate BCH addresses? Let us know in the comments!

Images via Pixabay, Trezor.

At news.Bitcoin.com we do not censor any comment content based on politics or personal opinions. So, please be patient. Your comment will be published.

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