What is a Bitcoin address?
A string of letters and numbers that tells someone where to send you bitcoin, a bit like an account number for one payment.
Not to be confused with: a transaction IDTransaction ID (txid)A 64-character code that identifies one Bitcoin payment, so anyone can look it up..
An address is made from your wallet's keys, so only your wallet can spend what's sent to it. Depending on its type, it starts with 1, 3, bc1q or bc1p. The sending and receiving wallets or services must support that address type.
A fresh address makes payments harder to link. Public-key exposure is separate: legacy and SegWitSegWitSegregated Witness: a 2017 upgrade that moved signatures into a separate part of each payment, making room for more payments. v0 addresses usually keep the key hidden until spending, while a TaprootTaprootA 2021 upgrade that added Schnorr signatures and addresses starting bc1p, making complex payments cheaper and more private. address includes an output public keyPublic keyThe partner of a private key. It lets anyone check a signature without revealing the private key under current computing assumptions. from the start.
References
- Bitcoin Improvement Proposals, “BIP-341: Taproot: SegWit version 1 spending rules”.