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Bitcoin Address Types Explained: Legacy, SegWit and Taproot

Bitcoin has several address formats because its spending scripts and wallet standards evolved over time. The visible prefix is useful, but the important question is whether the sender and receiver support the corresponding output type.

Last reviewed: 2026-10-05.

Key takeaways

• 1... usually identifies Legacy P2PKH.
• 3... is P2SH and can be used by nested SegWit setups as well as other scripts.
• bc1q... is native SegWit v0 encoded with Bech32.
• bc1p... is a SegWit v1/Taproot address using Bech32m.
• An address format is not a “different Bitcoin network”; all of these can be Bitcoin Mainnet addresses.

1. Legacy addresses

Legacy P2PKH is the oldest common pay-to-public-key-hash format. Mainnet P2PKH addresses traditionally start with 1. They remain recognizable and broadly compatible, but newer output types can use block space more efficiently.

Older software may understand Legacy while lacking support for newer witness versions. That is why a receiver should never assume every exchange or wallet accepts every valid modern Bitcoin address.

2. P2SH and nested SegWit

Addresses beginning with 3 are Pay-to-Script-Hash addresses. P2SH is a general script wrapper, so the prefix alone does not mean “SegWit,” although nested SegWit historically used P2SH to improve compatibility with senders that did not yet support native SegWit addresses.

For users, the practical lesson is simple: do not infer the full spending policy from the first character alone. Treat the address supplied by the receiving wallet as authoritative for that receive request.

3. Native SegWit: bc1q

BIP 173 introduced Bech32 for native SegWit v0 outputs. Mainnet native SegWit addresses use the human-readable prefix bc and, for version 0 outputs such as P2WPKH, commonly begin bc1q.

BIP 84 defines a common HD-wallet derivation scheme for P2WPKH accounts. Native SegWit reduces some transaction-weight overhead compared with older wrapped formats and is widely supported by modern Bitcoin software.

4. Taproot: bc1p

Taproot uses SegWit version 1. BIP 350 specifies Bech32m for witness version 1 and later, and Taproot addresses commonly begin bc1p. BIP 86 defines a derivation scheme for single-key P2TR wallet accounts.

A bc1p address is valid only when the sender supports Taproot/Bech32m correctly. If a service rejects the address, do not rewrite or “convert” it yourself; instead use an address type that the receiving wallet can legitimately generate and the sender supports.

Address-format comparison

Common mistakes

• Believing bc1q or bc1p means a different blockchain from Bitcoin Mainnet.
• Assuming every address starting with 3 is nested SegWit.
• Manually editing an address prefix.
• Copying an old address from transaction history when the wallet has generated a fresh receive address.
• Sending a large amount before verifying sender compatibility.