Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: bitcoin address with capital letters
by
btc123thatthere
on 25/02/2021, 09:45:18 UTC
it is not a recommendation to change the letter cases when turning them into QR code, it is an option that exists to server very special cases like if you wanted to print the address on a very small surface like a physical bitcoin otherwise it is best to stick to lower case because the other wallet that reads it may not be as sophisticated to recognize upper case!

For presentation, lowercase is usually preferable, but inside QR codes uppercase SHOULD be used, as those permit the use of alphanumeric mode, which is 45% more compact than the normal byte mode.

It's specified in the BIP though. I don't think it's difficult for wallets to change it back into lowercase. Definitely not necessary and wouldn't affect normal use, just wanted to align with the BIP. Bitcoin Core is one of the many wallets that represents both their URI and QR codes in caps.

When I produce a QR code to show a receival address in Bitcoin Core, it comes up with both lowercase and uppercase letters in the address. (Core v0.18.0, Qt v5.9.7, old, I know...).