Pay-to-tap-root is a modified version of native segwit.

I do check the first few, middle and last few characters which I prefer.

There is possibility that two or more different addresses would start with the same first few characters and ended to be different addresses.

Because this is the easiest verification method, after a while people don't do it because they keep shortening the process (underestimating).

My years in this field have never once thought of creating this type of address, are you a developer? Afaik, the taproot address isn't yet active on the bitcoin network. So it will be good news for you if it becomes active one day and your previous transactions will also be recorded on the blockchain. cmiiw

Only B is not enough. Other shitcoins can have their addresses start with B too.

Address types:
- Legacy: start with 1
- Nested Segwit: start with 3
- Native Segwit (also called as Bech32): start with bc1q
- Taproot (also called as Bech32m, a variant of Bech32): start with bc1p

Bech32 adoption
Invoice address
List of address prefixes

How to lose your Bitcoins with CTRL-C CTRL-V
Why do you not check all characters of one address for each transaction?

Does it take 1 hour to check a full address from first to last character?

I’m sorry that you had to experience that because of a single mistake that you didn’t check everything on the address. If you were to send it to the wrong address, wouldn’t it have a different ending too? I think you should be able to check it if you have monitored and see what the address you were sent to is because it’s a considerable amount.

Being paranoid, sometimes is better to doublecheck, and make sure that you would receive the money.

I'm with the OP, I don't know who came up with it but it doesn't seem like a good idea. I usually for small payments, like $50 I look over the characters, and I think that if at some point I make a mistake or get scammed by not checking, I will learn my lesson and from then on I will look at it more carefully. With $4k I would have been more careful, though.

The four address formats used in the bitcoin mainnet are all intended to be compatible with one another, so you can send and receive bitcoin using two different formats.

The issue here is that it is not whether the bitcoin address you are sending to has a different format but rather with the wallet's capability to send to or receive from bech32m-type bitcoin addresses.

But yeah, that's a lot of tuition fee for a person who is in the industry for a while.

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- https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bech32_adoption

OP can lose his bitcoins only if he did sent his bitcoins to a wrong receiving address.

Because it is possible to receive bitcoin in all custody and self custody wallets with all transactions from any address types. Hence, it is impossible to not receive his bitcoins if he sent it to any receiving address he has even on centralized exchanges, casinos or merchants.

On centralized platforms, problems are for sending like if they don't support Bech32, Bech32m for withdrawal, we can not withdraw our bitcoins to these types of address. The technical problem is for Bech32 and Bech32m address type only. Nowadays, no issue for transactions between Legacy (1) and Nested Segwit address (3) types on centralized platforms. If any platform has that problem, they scam customers.

The only way that the address could have been wrong is if the destination (I still don't know if destination was OP's wallet or exchange) was using a flawed software to produce the wrong address.
As for Bech32/m differences, any software that doesn't support the newer type would reject it not accept it as valid since the checksum algorithm is different. So it should not have been possible to send to this address in first place if the software didn't support it already.

Unless you’re holding back due to privacy concerns, as stated before on this thread, you haven’t made the circumstances clear enough for people to uncerstand exactly where the problem you’ve had resides (i.e. implicated types of wallets, expected origin address type, expected recipient address type, address changed due to malware, or else).

Checkout the "Receive to P2TR" column here to see if that may have something to do with it.

I am so sorry for your loss, it's a significant amount of money... Like Charles-Tim, I usually don't fully check the address but I check the first 3-4 characters and the last 3-4 characters to ensure I got the right one. I remember there used to be malware that targeted copy-paste and pasted the wrong address, sometimes even making it an approximation of the original in terms of the first few characters, which is why I always do the basic checking. I still don't fully understand how the op lost the money (was is copy-paste malware or copying a wrong address in the first place because the first few symbols were identical?), and I'm not sure if anything can be done to get the money back (probably not, unless you know to whom that address belongs and can reach out in any way).
As for what was wrong with old addresses, I believe Segwit was at least partially aiming to reduce transaction fees, and given how the fees have been for the last few years, I think it worked.