Bitcoin Cash(BCH) is one of old boys in relatively short history of cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin(BTC), Ethereum(ETH), Ripple(XRP), Litecoin(LTC), Stella Lumens(XLM), ETC(Ethereum Classic) all have relatively longer history in crypto world.
These old boys have had some advantages that many crypto services like crypto payment or crypto lending/borrowing platforms keep supporting these coins while still some old style apps or services even do not list recent top coins like ADA, SOL, DOT on its supporting list.
I think this sort of trend will be changed soon, maybe in a year that should be essential to survive.
But as of now, sometimes we are required to send crypto for payment or staking/lending services in legacy coins. BCH is one of frequently used coins for some services.
BCH support 2 types of adress formats. Legacy and new adresses.
Sometimes these 2 address formats make users confused and push them have mistakes on transaction.
BCH Address Foramt
Until early 2018, bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash adresses used the same format, making it difficult to ensure users were transacting using the correct currency’s address.
The Bitcoin Cash team created the Cash Address (sometimes seen as CashAddr) format to encode addresses in a way that helps reduce user error when sending and receiving Bitcoin Cash. This format helps differentiate between Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and bitcoin (BTC) addresses.
The difference between legacy and new addresses
The new format will help you distinguish between bitcoin and BCH addresses.
There are no changes to the underlying private and public keys—this format only changes how BCH addresses are displayed.
How Cash Address format affects you
Some crypto services or protocols just support new or legacy format addresses.
So it is strongly required to see which address the service support.
- Coinbase just support new format BCH address
ex) bitcoincash:qpplh0vyfn67cupcmhq4g2dt3s50rlarmclu9vnndt - Abra just support legacy BCH address format
ex) qpplh0vyfn67cupcmhq4g2dt3s50rlarmclu9vnndt
Convert address for another format
You can convert BCH address using Conveting Tool
or You can see 2 different formats of a address with all the detail of a address in https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/
Just put in your address and then you can see all detail.