If you’re learning about Zcash for the first time you will immediately realize there are two types of transactions that can occur: transparent and shielded. Furthermore, if you have been keeping up with the latest developments in the Zcash ecosystem, you may have learned about Unified Addresses, or UA’s. When folks in the Zcash industry talk about shielded transactions, they mean transactions that involve addresses that are encoded for either the sapling or orchard protocols. UA’s are designed to unify any type of shielded or transparent transaction into a single address. This generalization is the key to simplifying the UX moving forward. The purpose of this guide is to supplement understanding of UA’s with concrete visual examples.
Currently there are three main types of addresses in use to date. These include
First thing to notice is how the length of each type of address is different. You can see this visually by the number of characters in the address string or by looking at the associated QR codes. As length of the address increases, the QR code tends to zoom out and fit more data into the square.
t1goiSyw2JinFCmUnfiwwp72LEZzD42TyYu is 35 characters longzs1cpf4prtmnqpg6x2ngcrwelu9a39z9l9lqukq9fwagnaqrknk34a7n3szwxpjuxfjdxkuzykel53 is 78 characters longu1ckeydud0996ftppqrnpdsqyeq4e57qcyjr4raht4dc8j3njuyj3gmm9yk7hq9k88cdkqfuqusgpcpjfhwu3plm2vrd32g8du78kzkm5un357r4vkhz4vhxd4yfl8zvszk99cmsc89qv4trd7jzkcs8h6lukzgy25j8cv76p0g603nrrg6yt6cxsh2v8rmkasskd69ylfyphhjyv0cxs is 213 characters longSecond thing to notice is the prefix of each address string – transparent start with a t, sapling with a zs, and finally UA’s with a u1.