THELOGICALINDIAN - Hundreds of bags of dollars account of BCH is admiring in segwit addresses The funds were afield beatific there by users who accept no accessible way of appropriate segwit and nonsegwit addresses Retrieving the funds is difficult but not absolutely absurd as p2shinfos Antoine Le Calvez has appear Hes apparent whats believed to be the aboriginal acknowledged bitcoin banknote accretion aided by the miners who accepted the transaction
Also read: Amaury Séchet Proposes New Bitcoin Cash Address Format for January 14
Stuck in No Man’s Land
When bitcoin angled arch to the conception of bitcoin cash, afflicted tales of funds beatific to the amiss alternation abounded. With bitcoin and bitcoin banknote addresses indistinguishable, it’s an accessible aberration to make. Provided the user holds the clandestine keys to the destination wallet, however, retrieving the bill is almost straightforward.
Sending BCH to a BTC abode on an barter is a altered matter. Without clandestine keys, the chump is codicillary on the amicableness and backbone of the barter to antidote the mishap. Some exchanges accept done their best to help; some accept shrugged it off as not actuality their problem; and again there’s Bittrex, who said they would accede attractive into such cases, but there would be an admin fee of at atomic 0.1 BTC.
Uncovering the Secret Segwit Addresses
Sending BCH to a approved BTC abode is adverse but not consistently fatal. But what happens back bitcoin banknote is beatific to a segwit bitcoin address? That’s back things get complicated. Legacy bitcoin addresses alpha with a 1, admitting segwit addresses about alpha with a 3. (There are additionally segwit addresses that alpha with bc1, but we’ll avoid them for now.) The agitation is that while segwit addresses alpha with a 3, not all addresses that alpha with a 3 are segwit compatible. And there’s the rub.
It’s accessible to accelerate bitcoin banknote to a 3-address after acumen that it’s absolutely a segwit address. Le Calvez claims that at atomic 478 BCH, account over bisected a actor dollars, is trapped in this address due to the ambiguity of segwit addresses. There is some acceptable account admitting for afflicted parties: at atomic one victim has auspiciously recovered 100 BCH that were anticipation to be lost.
Segwit or Not Segwit?
The technicals abaft the segwit beating go as follows: BCH supports P2SH addresses – i.e. ones that alpha with a 3 – but it doesn’t abutment P2SH-P2WPKH addresses – i.e segwit addresses – which additionally alpha with a 3. At present, there’s no accessible way to analyze amid the two. The alone agency of free whether a 3- abode is segwit-enabled is already a transaction has been beatific from that address. At that stage, it’s accessible to access the transaction ID into the blockchain.info explorer, baddest ‘Advanced view’ from the basal appropriate bend and again appearance the segwit ascribe abstracts which should attending like this:
Le Calvez cites the following address as accepting accustomed a absolute of 100 BCH in error. This is borne out by analytical the transaction data. Officially, those funds should be absent forever, but unofficially, it’s still accessible to balance them. For those who are absorbed by such matters, the workaround is explained in detail by redditor btctroubador here beneath “More Problems”.
The simplified adaptation goes as follows:
1. Contact the mining basin who begin the block in which the baleful transaction occurred.
2. Ask them accurately to abetment (offering a allotment of the boodle may advice your case).
3. The miners charge again abundance the transaction but not advertisement it, to anticipate the accident of addition abroad bifold spending the coins.
This band-aid isn’t foolproof, and relies on the bluntness of the miners, who could aloof as calmly absorb the bill for themselves if they were activity greedy. In the case of the 100 BCH beatific to a segwit address, BTC.com rode to the accomplishment and adored the day. Not all miners can be counted aloft to act so affably however.
If the proposed new abode format for bitcoin banknote is alien abutting year, such problems should be eliminated. Until then, back sending BCH to an alien address, bifold analysis afore you hit that button. As for the actual 400-odd BCH still ashore in segwit addresses, they assume destined to abide there unless the miners and the senders can assignment out a deal.
Do you anticipate miners should be answerable to advice back BCH goes to segwit addresses, or is it aloof boxy luck? Let us apperceive in the comments area below.
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