Quoting some discussion from the flypool thread
From this quote, it seems that flypool miners, who are required to use a zcash address as user ID, can just keep plowing on as the network switches to mainnet. This implies that zcash addresses generated using RC2 and the beta parameters remain valid.
Now, there is a new warning on zcash.flypool.org that says exactly the contrary to what has been said in the flypool thread.
This makes me realize that there is a widespread confusion about whether addresses remain valid after go-live. In most other crypto projects, the key derivation algorithm based on ECDSA don’t use any weird parameters so addresses always remain valid regardless of the specific network, be it test net, mainnet etc. That’s the case for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Steem etc.
That was my assumption until I saw this warning on flypool today, less than 24h before launch! I was about to go live with RC2 beta addresses, and just realized maybe that wasn’t going to work. Zcash is a different animal, and in hindsight I can conceive that keys would have to be taylor made to work with the trusted setup. But I’m not even sure now if that is really the case.
@zooko: can we have an official clarification on that? This is a very important matter. Many people including pools and exchanges may have address verification logic that will stop working if the address scheme is tied to parameters. Many people may keep using RC2 / beta addresses assuming they are entirely unrelated to the specific network instance like it’s the case for more “classic” crypto projects.