Address Scheme

Soqucoin uses Bech32m addresses at witness version 1. Every address encodes a SHA-256 hash of a Dilithium (ML-DSA-44) public key, making all Soqucoin addresses quantum-resistant from genesis.

Address format

The witness program is the 32-byte SHA-256 of the public key, encoded as Bech32m at witness version 1. The version-1 witness encodes to the character p immediately after the 1 separator, so current stagenet addresses look like:

ssq1p[bech32m data]

Prefix convention

The human-readable part (HRP) is the only per-network difference; the witness version (p) is the same everywhere.

Network	HRP	Example prefix	Status
Stagenet (current)	ssq	ssq1p...	live
Mainnet (at launch)	sq	sq1p...	not yet launched
Testnet	sq	sq1p...	live
Regtest	sq	sq1p...	local only

Note

Mainnet, testnet, and regtest all share the HRP sq; only stagenet uses ssq. Networks are distinguished by their magic bytes and ports, not by the address HRP.

Why Bech32m?

Bech32m (BIP-350) provides strong error detection and is the standard encoding for witness version 1 and above.

How addresses are generated

flowchart LR
    A[Dilithium keypair] --> B["Public key (1,312 bytes)"]
    B --> C["SHA-256 (32-byte digest)"]
    C --> D["Bech32m encode, witness v1"]
    D --> E["ssq1p... / sq1p..."]

1. Generate a Dilithium ML-DSA-44 keypair
2. Take the 1,312-byte public key
3. Hash it with SHA-256 to produce a 32-byte digest (the witness program)
4. Encode with Bech32m at witness version 1 using the network HRP

Validation rules

• Addresses MUST use lowercase encoding (Bech32m spec)
• Only witness version 1 is accepted for Dilithium outputs
• The witness program must be exactly 32 bytes
• Invalid checksums are rejected at the RPC and wallet level
• Sending to an invalid address returns error -5 (invalid address or key) from the RPC