Byron Wallet Vs Shelly Wallet

Hi Cardano,

Is there any difference between Byron Wallet and Shelly Wallet?
Why I had seen people are not able to send ADA from Byron Wallet to Shelly Wallet?

Can I make a conclusion that Byron and Shelly are two different silo Public Mainnet, they have their own transaction and wallet? Any clue on this?

Hi @lawweiliang

Byron is the legacy era and Shelley enabled the staking feature.

So if you create a new wallet, you probably should always select Shelley :slight_smile:

Cheers
Fabian

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@Zyroxa,

Can I conclude that currently there are two public Mainnets? One is for legacy Byron and The other one is for Shelly.

Cheers
Liang

No thats not correct. There is only one mainnet running, but there are 2 types of wallets :slight_smile:

2 Likes

@Zyroxa,

Arr, I see.

Questions

  1. In the future, would Cardano stick with only one type of wallet?
  2. How can I move my ADA from Byron Wallet to Shelly Wallet?
  3. Does that mean that in future system update, we will have other wallet type for Goguen, Basho and Voltaire(in total have 5 types of Cardano wallet)?
  4. How can I differentiate whether my wallet is Byron Wallet or Shelly Wallet?

Cheers,
Liang

I guess there will be always the option to restore a byron wallet because if that wouldnt be possible anymore, there might me alot of ada stuck in the nirvana. :stuck_out_tongue:

Depends on your wallet. If you use Daedalus or Adalite you can simple click “migrate to Shelley” or something like that and then your funds will be moved to a new Shelley wallet.

probably not but im not sure about that.

Shelley public addresses starts with addr1

Cheers
Fabian

2 Likes

@Zyroxa,

I will consider this as one big problem because from a user’s point of view. It was super confusing, not user-friendly, and difficult to use.

Use case problem(Assumption)

I want to send my ADA to mobile App wallet. First, I need to check whether my ADA wallet is Byron wallet or Shelly Wallet. Then, I need to read through the documentation of the mobile app Wallet and check whether they are using Shelly Wallet or Byron Wallet. If it is the same, send ADA without any problem. Different, I need to either migrate my Shelly Wallet to Byron Wallet or from Byron Wallet to Shelly Wallet then only I am capable to send. Wow, it is super troublesome.

Furthermore, in near future, there will have another 3 Cardano update which might adding 3 more wallet types. Gang, things are getting so complicated.

Hmm, thanks @Zyroxa. I will keep this on my Radar.

Cheers,
Liang

1 Like

I doesnt see this use case problem.

The shelly wallet is the normal wallet. If you have this one you are great.

If you have an byron wallet you have an outdated but still working wallet. The yoroi App for example is suggesting you to use the shelley wallet and just offers the byron wallet as advanced option.

See it like an Windows Update, Windows 7(Byron Wallet) is still operating but is outdated.
The newest version is Windows 10(Shelley Wallet) this one will further improved and managed. You have the option to upgrade from windows 7 to windows 10 (byron to shelly) but not backwards.
Every App you can run on windows 7 can also used on windows 10, but there are few apps that need windows 10 as minimum.

Maybe there will be new Wallet types in future, but yoroi and deadalus offering you to update you wallet immediately.
So yeah see it as Updates not as different versions.

2 Likes

@Jonny22
Thanks for your add-on information.
From what I understand, you will lose your ADA if you send your ADA from Byron Wallet to Shelly Wallet. Correct me if I was wrong. As a normal user, I don’t think they know about this hidden trick until they make mistake. Yeah.

Oh, now I know the answer. It was impossible for us to make mistake because Byron Wallet addresses are totally different from Shelly Wallet addresses.

This article explains everything

Byron addresses

During the Byron era (Finished in July 2020) all addresses were one of the following:

  1. Icarus-style: Starting with Ae2
  2. Daedalus-style: Starting with DdzFF

Shelley addresses

Since the Shelley era started, a new type of wallet was added to the system, these can support delegation and earning rewards, the Shelley-era addresses follow this:

  1. Start with addr1

Now I am crystal clear. Thanks Everyone. Cheers.

3 Likes

Ok, so I guess I made the exact mistake as described here. I sent some ada from an exchange to a shelley wallet address. Later I saw that the old wallet on the exchange was : DdzFF . What can be done? - Never mind, ADA came in great after a few minutes. Cheers

nothing, the transactions should work now as most of the exchanges are supporting shelley :slight_smile:

1 Like