Bitcoin addresses are unique ids used for sending and receiving Bitcoin just as you send an email to a friend. Learn more.
Bitcoin addresses are unique ids used for sending and receiving Bitcoin. To send an email to a friend, you need their email address. You will then send them an email from your own email address. Same thing with bank transfers, you need a recipient’s bank account to send money to and vice versa.
Unlike bank accounts though, everyone can see how much is held in an address using Blockchain explorers. The same concept applies to bitcoin addresses. When you want to receive bitcoins, you need a bitcoin address. When sending Bitcoins to another person, you need them to send their bitcoin address.
What does a Bitcoin address look like? An email address looks like this name@me.com. They usually take a common format where there is a unique name, followed by the “@“ symbol and then and domain name. Bitcoin addresses also follow a format, they typically start with either “1”, “3” or “bc”3QAgyDfn9Vp9kcPbdHKKhP2rxNmEEYqdxMbc1qf4ufafdupmrvzvdym3hxjqrxemua030xnd3sc315wfFtqHYWB4GUmkkdmjAGUHL267xLmAVe.
We will someday look at the differences between these addresses even though they’re all valid bitcoin addresses. If you want to go ahead, then google “bech32 vs legacy bitcoin addresses”.