Addresses

Addresses are unique identifiers that are used in a transaction on the blockchain to send data to another address; in the case of Bitcoins, addresses are identifiers that are used to send or receive Bitcoins. Bitcoin blockchain addresses have evolved from time to time. Originally, IP addresses were used as the Bitcoin address, but this method was prone to serious security flaws; hence, it was decided to use P2PKH as a standard format. A P2PKH address consists of 34 characters, and its first character is integer 1. In literal terms, P2PKH means Pay to Public Key Has. This is an example of a Bitcoin address based on P2PKH: 1PNjry6F8p7eaKjjUEJiLuCzabRyGeJXxg.

Now, there is another advanced Bitcoin protocol to create a P2SH address, which means Pay to Script Hash. One major difference with a P2SH address is that it always starts with integer 3 instead of 1.