The Bitcoin Cash community (BCH) - developers and companies that support this crypto currency, are preparing for the "Address Change Day", scheduled for January 14, 2018. On this day, the BCH network and its participants will be updated to the Bech32 address format, proposed by the Bitcoin ABC developer, Amaury Sechet.
In October this year, it was reported that the leading developer of the Bitcoin ABC client Amory Secet proposed to change the address format in the Bitcoin Cash protocol. The new format will be based on the Bech32 code base and will prevent Bitcoin Cash from being sent to Bitcoin addresses (BTC) after the update. In addition to this particular advantage, the address format, called Cashaddr, will also provide improvements for new protocol functions.
For example, it will help to promote the concept of adding evidence with zero disclosure (Zero Knowledge Proofs) to the BCH network. In addition, Cashaddr will provide an improved checksum and QR-encoding. Amorie Secchet said that the proposed format will also allow developers to "implement a safer method of implementing smart contracts between several participants in the future." Sechet noted that the idea of changing the address was "provoked" by erroneous sending of BCH to BTC addresses and vice versa.
"To reduce confusion for users with different addresses, I think it is very important to deploy this update in the near future and stop the fragmentation of the environment," he explained in a mailing list for developers. "It takes some time to deploy such a change in the network so that all wallets, exchanges and sellers can be updated."
Companies are preparing for changes
At the moment, companies are systematically preparing for the "Address Change Day". Representatives of the Blockchair blockbuster reviewer say that they are developing support for addresses based on Bech32. Openbazaar notes that the developer Chris Pacia (Chris Pacia) also prepared wallets for the changes. Representatives of Stash and Edge wallets say that they are talking to the introduction of Cashaddr format along with the popular purse Electron Cash. P2P-platform BTCpop also announced the support of the new format:
"On January 14, we will support the implementation of the Bech32 address format for Bitcoin Cash. We will also run a simple converter so that users can convert the address of the deposit into a new format. The withdrawal of funds will be carried out in both formats. "
A significant part of the Bitcoin Cash community seems to be well prepared for the upcoming update. Other companies have three more weeks to make all the necessary changes to their work. Many supporters of BCH believe that the update will be as smooth and successful as the November 13 hardcore, which changed the algorithm for adjusting the complexity of mining.
