i made a bech32 key with vanitysearch and imported the wif into bitcoin-qt 0.18.0 but it ends up giving me the old style with the 1 prefix. i have bech32 enabled as default in the options; if i let the wallet generate a random key for me it is bech32. so how to import a key as bech32 ?
you must import the private key full like "p2wpkh-p2sh:5priv.key" or "p2wpkh:5priv.key"
AFAIK this will only work with Electrum.
Have you tried this prefix method with Bitcoin-qt or Bitcoin Core?
i saw someone who using bitcoin core or Bitcoin-qt and doing this and his address added into their wallet
It's possible, you just need to use
importprivkey command on Bitcoin Core console. I've tried it with example from private key and i got correct address.
- Import private key (and rescan blockchain)
importprivkey L2qvghanHHov914THEzDMTpAyoRmxo7Rh85FLE9oKwYUrycWqudp
- Import private key, giving label to the address and skip scanning blockchain to find all transaction correlated to theaddress
importprivkey L37xBVcFGeAZ9Tii7igqXBWmfiBhiwwiKQmchNXPV2LNREXQDLCp "Main address" false