Address

An address is an identifier that represents a possible destination for a payment. Addresses can be generated at no cost by any user. Like e-mail addresses, one can send a transaction to a person by sending to one of their addresses. However, unlike e-mail addresses, people may have different addresses and a unique address should be used for each transaction.

A Beam address is derived from a public key through the use of a cryptographic hash function. Addresses in Beam are longer than in most cryptocurrencies, as it uses Confidential Transactions (CT), which need to include an additional public key in the address to encrypt a message to the receiver. This message includes information about the amount being transferred.