Bitcoin payment ID question.

[djalexr]

Hi everyone,

Quite a basic question - when you send bitcoin payments, is there anyway to have some kind of ID or reference that goes with the payment to make it easier to identify the payment?

For example, if somebody is selling a lot of items all at 1 bitcoin each, and they receive 10 out of 15 expected payments, how could they tell who had paid and who had not? When sending a normal bank transfer, you can add in a 'reference' field that goes with the payment..is there anything similar with bitcoin?

Thanks!

Alex

[CIYAM]

The best way to achieve this (from the receiver's side) is to use a different address for every tx (so the address is not tied to a product but to a specific purchase of a product by a specific buyer).

From the sender's side use the "label" feature to keep a note for reference.

[tysat]

The best way to achieve this (from the receiver's side) is to use a different address for every tx (so the address is not tied to a product but to a specific purchase of a product by a specific buyer).

From the sender's side use the "label" feature to keep a note for reference.

^^ This ^^

As long as you're not receiving tons of payments this should be a great option for you.

[cobra-kai]

There is also the possibility to include a message in the transaction, which will be embedded irrevocably in the blockchain, and will be visible to everyone. Not all clients I've tried support this, but you can use it e.g. on blockchain.info, if you make a custom transfer.

[djalexr]

great, thanks for the info... I was thinking about this in theoretical terms, like if a large company wanted to start accepting bitcoins, there would need to be a way for them to automatically deal with large amounts of payments and track which payments relate to which customers on a commercial scale...it seems like this should at least be possible using the bitcoin framework