BUIP076: Support Base32 address format in BUCash
Proposer: Gal Buki (@torusJKL)
Submitted on: 2017-11-17
Status: passed

Motivation

Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash share the same address format. This had the
effect that users have sent BTC or BCH to an address that was used on
the other chain such that if the other party does not recognize that
chain the coins are “lost”.

In addition users have sent BCH to SegWit addresses making them
unspendable on the BCH chain even if the owner had the private key.

Objectives

Implement a new address format that would make the addresses
distinguishable from each other such that users do not send funds to
addresses from wallets that use the BTC chain.

Solution

Use the Base32 cashaddr format as proposed on the bitcoin-ml mailing
list.

Development task

BUCash should develop the following:

• allow to use the new address format when sending a payment
• allow to use the new address format when signing and verifying a
  message
• allow to configure in the GUI if addresses should be displayed in
  the new or old format
• provide a command line argument to convert the old format to the new
  and vice versa

At the time of writing the BUIP the specification has not yet been
finalized. The Bitcoin Unlimited lead developer is encouraged to
participate in the discussion and represent BU in this matter.

Should there be no consensus on the specification than it is up to the
Bitcoin Unlimited lead developer’s discretion to choose between the
proposed cashaddr solutions.

References

Specs: Address format for Bitcoin
Cash

bitcoin-ml
discussion