Address Attribution

Overview

Address Attribution answers who or what an address represents. In a merchant system, a strong attribution can come from a recorded Address Assignment created for a customer or invoice.

External analytics can label an address as belonging to an exchange, bridge, scam, or service, but those labels can be incomplete or stale. An address can represent pooled custody for many users rather than one owner.

Attribution should record evidence source, timestamp, scope, and confidence. A signed-message proof can demonstrate key control, while a customer profile can establish business association without proving exclusive key ownership.

The concept differs from Transaction Attribution. Address attribution concerns the identity or role associated with a destination, while transaction attribution determines which invoice, order, or payer an observed transfer belongs to.

High-impact actions should not rely on one unverified label. Compliance, support, and payment matching may require provider records, customer evidence, and on-chain verification together. Privacy and data-retention rules also apply when addresses are linked to real identities.

Attribution can have several simultaneous meanings. One entity may control the key, another may operate the wallet service, and a third may be the beneficial owner of the funds. Compliance and support teams should avoid storing one generic owner field when the evidence actually describes different roles. Role-specific labels make later decisions more accurate.

Where attribution supports compliance or account restriction, the decision should allow human review and appeal. A third-party label alone should not permanently attach a high-risk identity without evidence quality, date, and scope being visible.