Advanced Transactions and Scripting

This chapter covers advanced transactions and scripting. Here, we will learn about different transaction types and the scripts that create them. You'll use concepts like pay-to-script-hash and multi-sig in almost any Bitcoin development project.

P2SH Addresses

Another important part of the P2SH feature is the ability to encode a script hash as an address, as defined in BIP-13. P2SH addresses are Base58Check encodings of the 20-byte hash of a script, just like bitcoin addresses are Base58Check encodings of the 20-byte hash of a public key. P2SH addresses use the version prefix "5," which results in Base58Check-encoded addresses that start with a "3".

For example, Mohammed's complex script, hashed and Base58Check-encoded as a P2SH address, becomes 39RF6JqABiHdYHkfChV6USGMe6Nsr66Gzw. We can confirm that with the bx command:

echo \
'54c557e07dde5bb6cb791c7a540e0a4796f5e97e'\
 | bx address-encode -v 5
39RF6JqABiHdYHkfChV6USGMe6Nsr66Gzw

Now, Mohammed can give this "address" to his customers and they can use almost any bitcoin wallet to make a simple payment, as if it were a bitcoin address. The 3 prefix gives them a hint that this is a special type of address, one corresponding to a script instead of a public key, but otherwise it works in exactly the same way as a payment to a bitcoin address.

P2SH addresses hide all of the complexity, so that the person making a payment does not see the script.