What is an external address, and why would I add one?
For merchants who already run their own wallet — full custody, pay-in only, and how refunds work.
If you already manage your own Web3 wallet and don’t want to route funds through a new TEE wallet, you can add that wallet to Morph Payments as an external address. You keep full control of your private keys the whole time — Morph Payments never takes custody of anything sent there, and there’s nothing to migrate later if you change your mind.
Good to know: external addresses can only receive payments (pay-in) — they can’t be used to send payouts. And since Morph Payments doesn’t hold the keys, refunds from an external address aren’t automatic: you send the refund yourself, then record its transaction hash on the order in Morph Payments. That’s enough for the order to be marked refunded and reconciled in your records.
Who external addresses are for
External addresses suit businesses that already operate their own non-custodial wallets and want incoming payments settled directly there, without routing through Morph Payments’s TEE wallet infrastructure. If your treasury team already manages funds on Ethereum, Base, or BNB Smart Chain using a hardware wallet or multisig, you can receive Morph Payments payments straight to those addresses.
How to add an external address
Go to Settings → Receiving addresses in Morph Payments Console and select “Add external address.” Enter the wallet address and complete the ownership verification step — Morph Payments asks you to sign a small message using that wallet to confirm you control it. Once verified, the address is available as a receiving destination when you create payment requests.
Cross-chain payments to external addresses
Cross-chain routing works the same way for external addresses as for TEE wallets. If a customer pays on a different chain than your external address is on, Morph Payments handles the bridge and delivers the settled amount to your address. The cross-chain service fee applies in the same way.
Receiving to an external address vs. your TEE wallet
Both receive the same stablecoins and support the same payment methods. The difference is key management. With a TEE wallet, Morph Payments’s hardware protects your private key and you access it via email login. With an external address, the private key is entirely your responsibility — maximum independence, but no recovery option if you lose access to the wallet.
Refunds and external addresses
Because Morph Payments does not control the private keys for your external address, it cannot initiate a refund on your behalf. To refund an order paid to your external address: send the refund manually from your own wallet, then open the order in Morph Payments Console and record the refund transaction hash. Morph Payments will mark the order as refunded and include it in your records.
