---
title: "Bitcoin Cash"
description: "CashAddr with the checksum verified under the bitcoincash prefix, written or not, CashTokens and 32-byte script hashes included. Legacy base58 stays out."
canonical_url: "https://chains.agntn.dev/chains/bitcoincash"
---
# Bitcoin Cash

> CashAddr with the checksum verified under the bitcoincash prefix, written or not, CashTokens and 32-byte script hashes included. Legacy base58 stays out.

<chain-facts chain="bitcoincash">



</chain-facts>

## Address format

CashAddr, the same encoding [eCash](https://chains.agntn.dev/chains/ecash) uses, with the checksum verified under the `bitcoincash` prefix whether the address carries `bitcoincash:` or not. The rules are the ones Bitcoin Cash Node decodes by. `q…` is pay-to-pubkey-hash over a 20-byte hash, `p…` is pay-to-script-hash over 20 bytes or over 32, the longer P2SH32 form. `z…` and `r…` are the token-aware twins CashTokens added, same hashes, same rules. Mixed case fails, all lowercase or all uppercase passes.

A bare eCash address fails here, and a bare Bitcoin Cash address fails on eCash. The two differ in the checksum alone, and the checksum is exactly what gets verified, so [identify](https://chains.agntn.dev/guide/identify) names one chain and not both.

Legacy `1…` and `3…` addresses aren't accepted. Wallets still read them, but the bytes are Bitcoin's, so a legacy address says nothing about which chain it's for. Convert it to CashAddr first.

The CAIP-2 reference isn't Bitcoin's genesis. Bitcoin Cash shares that block, so BIP-122 keys the chain by block 478559, the first one after the split.

```ts
import { getChain } from "@agntn/chains";

const chain = getChain("bch");
chain.assertAddress("bitcoincash:qz3yjg59ypg6jqpwhaxgvjj44jm4hdx0w5wsxw2qez"); // returned unchanged
chain.bip44; // 145
chain.caip2; // "bip122:000000000000000000651ef99cb9fcbe"
```

## Spellings

`bitcoincash`, `bch`, `bitcoin-cash`, `Bitcoin Cash`. The key is `bitcoincash`, the rest resolve through `getChain`.


## Sitemap

See the full [sitemap](https://chains.agntn.dev/sitemap.md) for all pages.