How is an address beginning with a 3 valid?

3

The Bitcoin Dark Wallet project is accepting donations to address 32wRDBezxnazSBxMrMqLWqD1ajwEqnDnMc. How is this a valid address? I thought that all Bitcoin public addresses start with 1.

Colin Dean

Posted 2013-11-01T15:03:40.657

Reputation: 6 559

Answers

3

According to the List of address prefixes, an address beginning with 3 is Bitcoin script hash. This means that transactions sent to this address are handled differently than normal transactions.

Colin Dean

Posted 2013-11-01T15:03:40.657

Reputation: 6 559