FAQ — “Exchanges have an M address, not a G address — so you can tell them apart?”

The claim

“Exchanges (OKX / Bitget) give deposit addresses that start with M, not G. Therefore you can tell exchange Pi apart from mined Pi.”

Half true ✅

• Partly correct: some exchanges give a Pi deposit address starting with M.

  Bitget: “Your PI deposit address will appear (usually starting with “M”).” 🔗 https://www.bitget.com/academy/how-to-securely-deposit-pi-coin-to-bitget

• M addresses are Muxed Accounts (CAP-27 in the Stellar protocol, which Pi is built on): an address = G + a 64-bit ID.

Why it does not prove coins can be told apart ❌

1. An M account is virtual — it doesn’t exist on the ledger.

   Stellar Docs: “Muxed accounts do not exist on the ledger, but their shared underlying GABC… account does.” → In reality the account is the G address; M is just a wrapper. 🔗 https://developers.stellar.org/docs/build/guides/transactions/pooled-accounts-muxed-accounts-memos

2. The network treats it exactly as if no muxing were used.

   “There’s no validation on IDs and as far as the Stellar network is concerned, all supported operations operate exactly as if you did not use a muxed account.” → Same native π, same fungibility.

3. M describes the “counterparty”, not the “coin”. M exists to distinguish users within one pooled account (an exchange’s). → It tells you who (which depositor), not where the coin came from.

4. “M = exchange” is one-directional and incomplete.
   • A deposit to an exchange → often to an M address.
   • A withdrawal from an exchange → comes from the exchange’s hot wallet G (not M). → If you see an M, you only know the deposit destination is a pooled account.
5. Not every exchange uses M — many use G + Memo.

6. Any ordinary user can use an M address — it isn’t exclusive to exchanges. → So “M = exchange” is wrong to begin with.

7. Most importantly: even if you knew the counterparty is an exchange, the coin itself (native) has no memory. You still don’t know whether the units at that exchange were mined or bought.

The key distinction

Concept	What it gives you
Address labeling (a known G/M belongs to an exchange)	✅ who the counterparty is
Coin provenance (a unit’s origin)	❌ impossible — no such field exists

M adds information about the address (counterparty), never about the coin’s origin.

A concrete example

1. Someone mines π → sends to OKX (deposit to an M address) → withdraws to a fresh G wallet → sends it to your app.
2. Your app sees only the last hop: a native payment from a G address. It never sees the history.
3. Even if sent directly to OKX’s M address, you’d only know the destination is an exchange — the coin is still plain native π with no tag.

Conclusion

M vs G = addressing / counterparty identity, not a coin tag. Fungibility holds: a single native asset, with no origin — not on-chain, not in the Pi Wallet SDK, and not in the Platform API.

---

Sources

• Stellar — Pooled accounts / Muxed accounts / Memos: https://developers.stellar.org/docs/build/guides/transactions/pooled-accounts-muxed-accounts-memos
• Stellar — CAP-27 (Muxed accounts): https://github.com/stellar/stellar-protocol/blob/master/core/cap-0027.md
• Bitget — Pi deposit address (starts with M): https://www.bitget.com/academy/how-to-securely-deposit-pi-coin-to-bitget
• Pi Platform API (PaymentDTO): https://github.com/pi-apps/pi-platform-docs/blob/master/platform_API.md