Bitcoin Address Validator

The Bitcoin Address Validator checks whether an address is well formed and passes its cryptographic checksum, and reports the address type and network. Paste an address and the tool identifies it as P2PKH, P2SH, Bech32 or Taproot, shows whether it is mainnet or testnet, and confirms whether the checksum is valid. All of this happens in your browser without contacting any server.

Validation depends on the address format. Legacy Base58Check addresses, the kind that start with 1 (P2PKH) or 3 (P2SH) on mainnet and m, n or 2 on testnet, are verified by decoding the Base58 string and confirming that the last four bytes match a double SHA-256 of the payload. This is the same checksum scheme Bitcoin uses to reject mistyped addresses. SegWit Bech32 addresses, which begin with bc1q on mainnet or tb1 on testnet, and Taproot addresses, which begin with bc1p, are validated with the Bech32 polymod checksum over the human-readable prefix and the data portion.

It is useful for catching transcription errors before sending funds, for identifying what kind of address you are dealing with, and for confirming that an address copied from an invoice, an email or a QR scan is internally consistent. The prefix reference on the page lists each prefix and what it means, which helps when an address looks unfamiliar.

There are limits to what a checksum can prove. A valid result means the address is correctly formed and free of typos, not that it is in use, funded or controlled by the person you intend to pay. The tool does not query the blockchain, so it cannot show balances or history, and it cannot detect a valid address that simply belongs to the wrong recipient. Bitcoin payments are irreversible, so always confirm the destination through a trusted channel before sending.