<p>Generally speaking, the only way to distinguish incoming payments is by some combination of</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>sending address</strong> (usually arbitrary and not always known in advance)</li>
<li><strong>amount</strong> (could be same for many people if you are selling fixed-price widgets)</li>
<li><strong>receiving address</strong> (no good if you give everyone the same address to send money to)</li>
</ul>
<p>That is one reason why best practice is to generate a new receiving address per transaction.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-01-10T13:59:44.167Z
2021-01-10T13:59:44.167Z
RedGrittyBrick
<p>If i had a central Bitcoin wallet, and then allowed 3 different people to deposit bitcoin into that address, would there be anyway to distinguish who they are, without knowing who's address is who, i know sending messages with transactions isn't supported by all wallets so i was just wondering if there was a different way.</p>
<p>Like i said i've tried passing a message through the transaction but that isn't always possible from the wallets.</p>
<p>Maybe theres another way to check someone is the owner of a wallet. Other than signing a message of course.</p>

<transactions><signature><javascript><message-signing><deposit>
Distinguishing bitcoin deposits
Nathan Leadill
# Distinguishing bitcoin deposits

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-01-10)

If i had a central Bitcoin wallet, and then allowed 3 different people to deposit bitcoin into that address, would there be anyway to distinguish who they are, without knowing who's address is who, i know sending messages with transactions isn't supported by all wallets so i was just wondering if there was a different way.

Like i said i've tried passing a message through the transaction but that isn't always possible from the wallets.

Maybe theres another way to check someone is the owner of a wallet. Other than signing a message of course.

**Tags:** transactions, signature, javascript, message-signing, deposit


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2021-01-10. Score: 1

Generally speaking, the only way to distinguish incoming payments is by some combination of

* **sending address** (usually arbitrary and not always known in advance)
* **amount** (could be same for many people if you are selling fixed-price widgets)
* **receiving address** (no good if you give everyone the same address to send money to)

That is one reason why best practice is to generate a new receiving address per transaction.


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