SegWit stands for Segregated Witness, where Segregated refers to separate and Witness refers to the signatures of a specific transaction.

In terms of blockchain processes, SegWit is removing signature data from Bitcoin transactions with the aim to increase the block size. As a result of the soft fork in the Bitcoin network, SegWit changed the rules of the transaction format in the Bitcoin network. Developers hoped that SegWit would give more transactions per block and increase the speed of transactions.

However, not all exchanges and wallets support operations with SegWit addresses. The legacy format is more popular, so you should clarify with the sender or recipient what wallet format they support.

You can find more info about the history of SegWit addresses and their peculiarities in our blog post.