validateaddress

validateaddress checks whether a string is a well-formed Bitcoin address and decodes its structure. Given an address that could receive BTC, the node reports whether it is valid, the scriptPubKey it corresponds to, and details such as whether it is a script address, a witness (segwit) address, and which witness version and program it uses. It works purely from the address format — it does not consult or unlock any wallet and never exposes keys, which makes it safe to call on a public endpoint. Send the request with positional parameters to https://bitcoin.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY.

Use cases

• Validate an address a user typed or pasted before accepting a BTC withdrawal, catching typos and malformed strings up front.
• Obtain the scriptPubKey (hex) for a given address so you can match it against transaction outputs or build a watch-only descriptor.
• Detect the address type — legacy P2PKH, script (P2SH), or witness/segwit including its witness_version — to drive UI hints or fee estimates.

Parameters

Response

Example request

1curl https://bitcoin.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
4  -d '{
5  "jsonrpc": "1.0",
6  "id": "therpc",
7  "method": "validateaddress",
8  "params": [
9    "1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa"
10  ]
11}'

Errors & troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• The method does not raise an error for a malformed address — it returns an object with isvalid: false instead. Read the isvalid field rather than relying on a try/catch around the call.
• A valid result only means the string is correctly formatted for its network; it says nothing about whether the address has ever been used, holds any BTC, or belongs to a particular owner.

Supported networks

• Mainnet
• Testnet

See also

• decodescript
• deriveaddresses
• verifymessage