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  1. A few days ago I requested a BTC withdrawal on Binance, I used a bc1p address and the request went through as usual without any issue or warning. (my first time using taproot address).
  2. Binance checked the transaction as completed and provided Txn id.
  3. I noticed the funds didn't arrive and went to check the Txn id and noticed my address wasn't listed as beneficiary but a completely different address had received the exact same amount as I requested.
  4. Requested Binance chat support and They say taproot is not supported and Their system automatically transform/convert to a BC1Q (native segwit) address.
  5. Since then Binance admit to have fixed withdrawal to not allow taproot addresses to be used.

Of course all this is something beyond usual and They're trying to convince me it's my fault and I keep on fighting for They to assume Their responsibility.

Question 1: is it actually possible for them to convert a BC1P public address into a BC1Q address without having access to my private key or xpub? How?

Question 2: is it possible for me to recover the funds they sent to that address? How? (I'm currently waiting on Ledger support to see if They can help)

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  • Well... the P2WPKH is bech encoding of a 20 byte hash. P2WSH is bech encoding of a 32 byte hash. Where as P2TR is encoding of a 32 byte key. Are you sure your asking about a P2WPKH? Because I can easily see how to convert a P2TR bech32 encoding to a P2WSH encoding since the are both essentially encoding 32 bytes. But their meanings are so fundamentally different that I don't think it makes sense to do it.
    – Dan
    Dec 26, 2021 at 3:25
  • They're presumably misinterpreting it as v0 P2WSH address, which also has a 32 byte payload.
    – Pieter Wuille
    Dec 26, 2021 at 3:27
  • @PieterWuille here's a screenshot of the transaction and the Txn id. ibb.co/Sfv36hS ( 3eeeb9f0f27abeddbd64c1a696c4a02107759d5853877b327cb783a68ee4559a ) I'm not into technical stuff. They simply said They've converted the bc1p address I provided to a bc1q address. I don't see the funds anywhere on my wallet and tried generating new address and balance is 0. Chat support answers: ibb.co/tZq4txt ibb.co/YQMvd4y
    – Mario
    Dec 26, 2021 at 3:49
  • @Dan here's a screenshot of the transaction and the Txn id. ibb.co/Sfv36hS ( 3eeeb9f0f27abeddbd64c1a696c4a02107759d5853877b327cb783a68ee4559a ) I'm not into technical stuff. They simply said They've converted the bc1p address I provided to a bc1q address. I don't see the funds anywhere on my wallet and tried generating new address and balance is 0. Chat support answers: ibb.co/tZq4txt ibb.co/YQMvd4y
    – Mario
    Dec 26, 2021 at 3:50

1 Answer 1

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I am afraid the sent coins are irrevocably burned.

The reason is that P2TR addresses encode a (tweaked) public key, while P2WSH addresses encode a script hash. If someone would take a P2TR address so that it is interpreted as a P2WSH address with the same payload, you'd need find a script that hashes to the public key in the P2TR address. This is completely infeasible; if this were possible, SHA256 would be spectacularly broken.

This is not your fault, and you should demand your bitcoin back. P2TR addresses (like all addresses) have a checksum, and this checksum algorithm was even changed for the introduction of taproot. The fact that they accepted this address at all (even ignoring the misinterpretation as P2WSH) shows extreme incompetence on the side of the sender.

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  • 2
    Absolutely agree that you should be fully reimbursed for their error. Websites should never modify the address they've been given from that which you provided.
    – meshcollider
    Dec 26, 2021 at 3:49
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    I've been trying for days to get some big influencer or something to retweet me to get CZ (Binance CEO) attention but nobody cares. I'll wait for the last shot and if they keep trying to shut me down I'll have to try and take this to court.
    – Mario
    Dec 26, 2021 at 3:53
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    I hope this will help get it a bit more attention: twitter.com/murchandamus/status/1475120106695008260
    – Murch ♦
    Dec 26, 2021 at 16:35
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    @Murch thanks man I'll be forever grateful for that no matter how this issue ends.
    – Mario
    Dec 26, 2021 at 16:44
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    Note: the amount was eventually refunded by Binance.
    – Jonathan Cross
    Dec 10, 2022 at 19:51

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