Bitcoin Forum

I've started noticing transactions sending BTC to my wallet, but I have no idea where they're coming from or why.  Sure, it's possible there's a simple explanation or maybe I even signed up for something that is causing this, but I'm clueless.  The first transaction I figured was just random or something so I donated it to FreeRoss.  Now I'm seeing a second transaction.  In total they are less than $3, so it isn't a big deal.  I'm just curious why I'm getting these small transactions and if anyone has any clue why or where they're coming from.  Here's the transactions:

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/7883ab2422a2ff5ab50b72ad57a21150046fdb6e972337b8e0c29c74a3a690da

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/6fb6ffbf375098781f768664e5a0a8573d9cc7aa1bc4f8258e8c14393dafe5d6

If I were to guess, safe to assume that it's probably a dust attack?

https://support.exodus.com/article/1231-what-is-a-dust-attack-and-how-to-mitigate-it

Dust Attack, what it is, why it is dangerous and how to prevent falling to it (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5175238.0)

Your receiving satoshis are very similar to dust attacks.

Similar to this one. Even the value is bigger, it is still dust attack.

For privacy purposes, it is better to have a wallet that supports “coin control^[1]” and thus it will ensure that the rest of your addresses will not be known, as for the reason, it is either random to attack the network or someone is trying to collect more data about you, in the end money does not grow on trees and is not distributed One free money.


[1] https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015996580-Using-Coin-control

I find it a little hard to believe that someone would be doing dust attacks with dollars instead of fractions of a penny, but that was my first thought as well.  Hence why I donated the funds.  I guess I'll keep sending the unknown transactions to FreeRoss and other charities until I figure out where it's coming from.  I don't really think it's a dust attack though.  I reached out to another user who also received these funds via the same transaction to see if they have any idea what could be causing it as well.  I'll report back if I figure anything out.

I've had this happen to my Metamask wallet. I received a few thousand worthless coins/tokens that showed up when using services such as Yieldwatch and, of course, couldn't be sold despite showing having an X value due to them having zero liquidity. However, even after reading your article, I still don't quite understand how dust attacks are dangerous. Could you please elaborate? From what I've understood, it simply deanonymizes your address by creating multiple links towards it. Does it pose another risk? Addresses are not actually private, but if you don't publicly share them, like we do on our profiles, there's no way for them to be linked back to us. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I have been seeing it more and more with larger and larger amounts on some of my long term cold wallets. I figure if I ever move the funds I'll coin control all of those funds someplace else.

At a guess, it is a dust attack for some reason BUT they know that people in order to have more privacy will ignore / leave the truly dust amounts. But make it more money and they may actually move it someplace where they may have be able to trace it.

Yeah, I know, sounds paranoid but it's the only thing I can come up with.

-Dave

I experience one of my addresses with balance but it doesn't break any privacy because I only receive it in my one address and I include it on my next withdrawal to Binance.

I don't see any effect receiving them if you only receive it only in your one address but if the amount is too small better you manually choose what coin you want to spend because it can affect the transaction size which could lead to a high transaction fee excluding it can save more fees.


The issue on Metamask with ETH network or Bep20 network is totally different it looks like a dust attack but it is more likely a phishing attack where newbies fall about these trying to get benefits by transferring or withdrawing them and then sell them to exchanges where it listed but actually, in the end, if you do allow them their other coins or ETH/BNB will be stolen.

I say it was a dust attack there. Someone tries to probe your wallet if you forgot to exclude that dust input into your balance. Use coin control and send that amount back to where it comes from just to spite those cunt.
And if I were you, I would recheck or doubt my security cause someone has malicious intent toward you.

You re correct.

Although dust attack can be of minimal amount, but that does not mean dust attack can not be from high amount too but which is still considerably low in this case. The sender only just want to be able to track OgNasty transactions is what comes my mind.

@OgNasty, just freeze the coins or do it like you are doing it by donating it.

No need to send the coins back, using it for donation is good, or he can use coin control to freeze the exact UTXO.

It's a privacy problem, not necessarily a security problem so yea.

As for MetaMask, Ethereum and other smart contract chains uses a different transaction model as Bitcoin whereas Ethereum/etc just reuses addresses by default; so dust attacks aren't really needed. The tokens you get on your MetaMask wallet are scams that could potentially execute malicious code when trying to move them.

That's true. When it happened to me, I knew something fishy was going on, but decided to play along. I tried hopping on their so-called website in order to exchange the tokens, and except that it was a copy-cat from another service, it attempted to input your wallet's private keys when trying to connect your wallet to their website, claiming that automatic integration was faulty or whatever. Thus, while both are dust attacks, the latter aim at phising you in an attempt to steal your wallet's private keys.

My guess too as these are just about the amount that fits to the category and as such, its left for you to be more careful on the steps or actions on the wallet.

In simple terms, what does it mean for a wallet to support "coin control"?
Is it that the wallet would restrict certain amounts from being deposited on an address? More like a deposit limit or it means something else.

Meanwhile, its not really easy for one to go private on an address on the forum especially as we've got a public nature of displaying spreadsheet and we apply for campaigns every now and then when slot(s) opens.

Yes this is puzzling. Because why not send a few satoshis instead of sending this large amount. Dust attack are usually common when miner fees are low and usually never in strong bull markets. But they are hoping you just send all your bitcoins from your wallet from all your addresses and your privacy is affected by linking all your wallets and addresses together.

Also very common on ETH. But with ETH they send you thousands of some unknown coin. You google where to sell it and it’s some unknown exchange where the coin has high value. Only way to sell is to put in your private seeds and all your coins and tokens are gone, very common scam and many fall for it.

Ya, I don't mind donating the coins to FreeRoss.  A little bit annoying to see them continue to send me coins, but I guess we'll see how much they're willing to send.  I guess there are worse things that could happen.  I still wonder if these are some sort of payouts for something.  Who knows when it comes to Bitcoin...  I never got a response from other users who I was able to identify on the transaction list, so I guess other users aren't too worried about it.  Waiting now to see if I get another transaction I have to forward as I don't want to be held responsible for these payments without knowing where they're coming from.

I think all who use a metamask wallet or similar had experienced this already. I remember the first time I got a shady token, I was  so excited thinking it came from an airdrop and its value is also huge but I only found out the truth when I am about to sell them because the transaction always fails as it needs a lot of gas fees to be able to swap it.

We must be careful when dealing with these random coins. Much better if we don't touch them if we want to stay away from trouble. I never experience this to a btc wallet but thanks for this thread. Now I now that it's also possible. I hope wallet devs can do something to combat this issue soon.

Less likely to be dust attack because most of the dust attack pays only few sats which doesn't even worth cents but here the payment made was bigger than that so someone is sending the coins to wrong address or willingly just for annoying, possibly?

Dust attack can just be in few satoshi (like in hundreds of a satoshi), even with a legacy address, the smallest satoshi that can only be sent which is 746 sat. But in a dust attack, the attacker may prefer to increase the amount with few satoshi. The main purpose of the attack is to track where the victim is sending coins to which any amount sent to the victims can help in doing. Even if it is not a dust attack, it should be assumed and seen as a dust attack and should be avoided as long as the victim do not know the source. But the amount sent is not that big too but small.