Last month, a user on GitHub reached out to us about a proposed change to open-source Bitcoin client library,Bitcore. This change would allow our crypto wallets to send bitcoin to Bech32 addresses, using native SegWit outputs*. This was our response:
After some testing, we were able to add this functionality to our wallet. Since BitPay values open-source contributions from the cryptocurrency community, we are excited to add this change to our platform and take another step closer to taking full advantage of SegWit on the Bitcoin blockchain.
The BitPay and Copay apps can now successfully send bitcoin to Bech32 address.
What’s the take away from this?
Be the change you want to see in the world. If you have programming skills and you see a problem or a lack of a feature in an open-source software, #BUIDL that change. You can check our open-source projects for any that you might be interested in helping with. And if you don’t have any technical expertise, you can still help. BitPay is always looking for more feedback on our products.
If you don’t know what SegWit or Segregated Witness is and want to learn more, we recommend checking out Andreas Antonopoulos’s explanation of the change. If you have any suggestions of educational resources to include, email thoughts@bitpay.com with the subject line “SegWit Resources”*
