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Glossary

Bech32

1 min read

Bech32 is an encoding scheme used to encode SegWit addresses and Lightning invoices. The Bech32 alphabet contains 32 characters, including lowercase letters a-z and the numbers 0-9, excluding the number 1 and the letters ‘b’, ‘i’, ‘o’ to avoid reader confusion. Bech32 also includes an error detection mechanism.

Related Terms
Encoding
The Bitcoin Protocol uses several different encoding schemes to represent data to users. The encoding schemes are chosen based on the data type, in order to optimise for human readability and conserve disk space.
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SegWit
Segregated Witness (SegWit) is a soft-fork upgrade to Bitcoin which was activated in 2017. SegWit fixed the problem of transaction malleability, and paved the way for the implementation of the Lightning Network and many other upgrades.
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Lightning Invoice
A Lightning invoice serves as a request for payment and includes the amount to be paid and the destination of the payment.
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Base58
Base58 is an encoding scheme with an alphabet of 58 characters, including upper and lowercase letters A-Z and the digits 1-9. A variant of Base58 called Base58Check is used to represent legacy Bitcoin addresses.
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Base64
Base64 is an encoding scheme used to encode Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs). The Base64 alphabet uses 64 characters.
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