This would possibly sound like a dumb query, however bear with me — it is an actual one
With conventional financial institution transfers in a enterprise context, it is normal apply to connect a reference to the transaction (bill quantity, buyer ID, and so on.) in order that each events can reconcile it towards their accounting ledgers.
I do know the really helpful apply with Bitcoin is to generate a recent tackle per transaction/bill, which supplies you each higher privateness (and arguably quantum resistance) and unambiguous reconciliation.
Nonetheless, that solely works whenever you management the receiving aspect.
The Bitcoin community helps embedding further knowledge in transactions (OP_RETURN), and EVM chains have the calldata/enter knowledge discipline.
So why is it so unusual for purposes — not simply browser wallets — to let the sender connect a reference when sending funds?
If blockchain funds are ever going to succeed in mainstream enterprise adoption, this appears as clearly helpful as a financial institution fee reference.
I am asking as a result of I am personally affected: I am growing a blockchain transaction integration for an ERP system, and reconciliation with accounting is an actual ache with out it.
A number of substantive notes earlier than you publish, since discussion board regulars will doubtless elevate these:
OP_RETURN exists however is discouraged for this use — it prices additional charges, some wallets/nodes filter it, and the Bitcoin neighborhood traditionally resists utilizing the chain as a knowledge retailer. You would possibly preempt that by acknowledging it.
BIP21 fee URIs and BIP70/BIP71 (deprecated) / BIP270 tried to resolve precisely this on the protocol-adjacent layer — the reference lives within the fee request, not on-chain. Somebody will level this out, so you could possibly sharpen your query to: “why did payment-request protocols with reference fields by no means achieve pockets adoption?” That is truly the deeper query.
On EVM, plain ETH transfers to EOAs can carry enter knowledge, however ERC-20 transfers cannot simply (the info discipline is consumed by the switch() name itself) — price mentioning in case your ERP offers with stablecoins like USDC, since that is most likely your precise case.
