Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, has announced a significant shift in its Bitcoin (BTC) deposit address format.
BitMEX claims that the update won’t result in a “big change” to wallet security because the signature technique is already in place for processing hot withdrawals
The Seychelles-based cryptocurrency trading platform said on October 30 that it would modify the format of Bitcoin addresses to pay-to-witness-public-key-hash (P2WPKH), or native SegWit.
This means that all customer addresses will soon have addresses with the bc1 prefix. BitMEX says the change will allow it to “reduce withdrawal fees” for users and “improve our use of Bitcoin block space.”
The company also noted that the signature scheme “is already being used for our hot withdrawals processing,” meaning the update “will not bring a big change” to its wallet security.”
There may be rare occasions of delays in the processing of deposits or withdrawals, where their execution may take longer than normal. BitMEX states that it will continue to work with the old addresses, but “periodically,” and that it would no longer credit funds transferred to them in real-time as of January 1, 2024.
The exchange advised users to whitelist the new addresses and update their exchange wallet addresses that are saved in any address book on other sites.
