0x30 for P2PKH (L-prefix) and 0x32 for P2SH (M-prefix). The bech32 human-readable prefix is ltc, distinguishing it from Bitcoin's bc.3, sharing the version byte with Bitcoin. This made cross-chain mistakes possible and was retired. The validator still accepts these as valid for backward compatibility but flags them as deprecated.Four shapes are common: P2PKH legacy starting with L, P2SH starting with M (or, on older wallets, 3 — now deprecated because it collides with Bitcoin P2SH), native SegWit starting with ltc1q, and Taproot starting with ltc1p.
Bitcoin's P2SH addresses also start with 3 and use the same version byte (0x05). Sending Litecoin to a Bitcoin 3-prefix address — or vice versa — would silently succeed at the encoding level but lose the funds. In 2017 Litecoin introduced a distinct version byte (0x32 → M-prefix) to prevent this.
Legacy and P2SH addresses use Base58Check (double SHA-256 of the version + payload). SegWit and Taproot use Bech32 / Bech32m, which embed a polynomial-modulo checksum directly in the address text. We compute both locally — no network calls.
No. Despite both using SegWit and Bech32, they sit on independent chains with independent UTXO sets. Sending LTC to a Bitcoin address (or vice versa) is irrecoverable. The validator surfaces the network so you can check before signing.