Bitcoin Forum

I know that this is not a specific of bitcoin topic but let me change the question a little

If you want to organize your UTXOS in some way with some specific denominations/balance, which one do you want to choose?

For example some mixers use utxos of

0.001BTC
0.01BTC
0.1 BTC
...

And maybe others denominations

I remember to see some time ago the chips from chipmixer in some base of two denominations:

0.001 BTC
0.002 BTC
0.004 BTC
0.008 BTC
….
1.024 BTC
2.048 BTC
4.092 BTC
8.196 BTC

In the Fiat money that we use almost daily there are denominations of 1,2,5 for coins and  banknotes, example for some bank notes:
€5, €10, €20, €50
$1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100

Just to mention some of them…

This is only for the first organization for some mixing.. After this it will be as usual some 1 or 2 inputs to 1 to more outputs and the change address with any random amount - fees

So here is the question again.
If you want to organize your UTXOS in some way with some specific denominations/balance, which one do you want to choose and why?

I would like to read your answers.

My favorite option is ther first option: 0.001BTC 0.01BTC and 0.1 BTC

Regards!

Since you are using mixing services, it is likely that you have broken the link between your inputs and your outputs. If this does not happen, it is better to change the mixing service. Therefore, you must choose pairs that reduce the number of entries according to your spending. If on average you spend .3BTC bitcoins, it is better to use the .25BTC option. Instead of 0.1BTC, as the number of entries will be two instead of 4, and therefore lower fees.

In short, the nature of your spending will determine the number of chips as long as you are sure of the quality of the mixing service.

I like using decimal numbers. That means, you start from 10 as your base, and split it into 1, 2, and 5. Which means, this is my set of amounts:
The lowest value is 0.00001000 BTC, just because of the dust limit, and because it is "safe" amount, no matter which standard address type you pick. In some sub-networks, the list can go down, in some experimental networks even potentially "ad infinitum", by using base-10 approach (sorry, not base-2, this is not about infinite halvings, and one satoshi is 1000 millisatoshis, not 1024, as some people proposed it to become; I also think it should scale with base-10 downwards, if needed). The biggest amount is 50 BTC, not because I have it (I am not that rich, I started since 2019, so don't expect me dealing with huge amounts), but because this was the basic block reward at the very beginning. Which means, when I have to handle testnet/regtest/signet or other testing stuff, then I don't want to use bigger coins than 50 BTC, because then it is harder to not be noticed as a whale, and if you have a lot of whales, each owning exactly 50 BTC, then you can hide in that kind of crowd, instead of shouting to everyone "I have 1000 BTC on a single coin" (even if it is all about testing). You can pick a different maximum value, for example 1 BTC or 0.01 BTC, it depends, in which crowd you want to hide, and how many fees are you going to accept, because more UTXOs obviously means higher fees.

It is easy to implement, but it can be somewhat bad for privacy. Because those who don't use mixers, usually don't send 1.024 BTC. Programmers? Maybe. But non-IT people? Not really. And if you want to hide in the crowd, you have to behave like a crowd, and use base-10 whenever possible, and send 1 BTC, instead of sending 1.024 BTC.

Also, one more important thing: is it about hiding your assets, or is it about dealing with amounts you like in a perfect world? Because the "ideal situation" scenario is described above, but I can add one more thing: if you want to hide, then you don't want to come up with your own model. What you really want, is to observe the chain, trace all amounts you can see, sort it by how many times it was used, and then use "the current thing" as your golden standard. Which means, if people will suddenly start sending 0.00001337 BTC, then if that will be used by a significant percentage of the network, then you probably also want to do that, even if you really like base-10 numbers. Because then, your goal is to hide, and it is more important than your perfectionism.

Well, base-10 alone and pure, with 1 and 10, is quite good approach, but it is not divisible enough. For that reason, I like to include 2 and 5 into this set. However, if the majority is using only 1 and 10, I can also do that.

As long as Bitcoin does not support hiding amounts directly, you have to handle that as well. Sorry, but if you have 1.23456789 BTC, and you use some kind of mixer, then still, getting back exactly 1.23456789 BTC is suspicious. Even getting back exactly 1.23450000 BTC, and sending 0.00006789 BTC in fees, or leaving it inside mixer, is still suspicious, because then someone can still conclude "This user potentially used ChipMixer, or any similar service, with the same denominations". And then, if the whole UTXO set contains for example only 1000 such UTXOs, then guess what: this is your anonymity set! Exactly this, not the full user base of Bitcoin! Really, think about it, amounts are important, because they are always visible.

None. Definitely none of the above. I am trying to avoid any "round" numbers, and finding any patterns. Why? Because if you have exactly 0.01 BTC on some output, then you are willing to leave it as it is, but if you have 0.01658960 BTC, then guess what: you can move it easily! Any "round" amounts are great for savings, but any non-round amounts are great for spending.

Bitcoin successfully solved change-making problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change-making_problem) once and for all: you have some inputs, and some outputs. You can freely use any amounts you like. Which means, if you want to buy something for 12.99, then you can have one bill with exactly this value! This is great achievement, don't try to destroy it by using round numbers, and reintroducing change making problems once again!

So, what are you gonna do? Save or spend? Choose wisely, and pick your side, by using proper amounts. Round amounts are for those who wants to say "this output with exactly 1 BTC is precious, I don't want to touch it". Having 1.35619279 BTC is for spenders, who can easily say "whatever", and move it without thinking about "destroying that precious 1 BTC", and happily receive 1.35611658 BTC back, because they don't care about the exact amount.

For personal usage, i don't see any advantage of creating new UTXOs with specific amount. So i'd use different way to organize merge my UTXO such as merge UTXO from signature campaign.


But looking at average TX fee rate in last few months, personally i'd avoid creating UTXO with less than 10K satoshi.

Totally agree with this, any change low than 10k sats need to be send to a different wallet seed with only dust transactions just to be consolitaded after some 100k sats or more


Yes I also like a lot the 1, 2 and 5 denominations becuase those are the denominations that we use often.


Yes that is true :) at the end if we need to spend some round input there should not be a problem.

My personal recommendation is to use denominations of 0.001 BTC, 0.01 BTC, and 0.1 BTC. This is a good way to achieve a balance between privacy, efficiency, and convenience.

It is important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. The best way to organize your UTXOs for mixing will depend on your individual needs and preferences.

I myself personally like the denominations similar to yours, 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, 1 etc. I feel like that's the best way to represent the Bitcoin value in any sort of transaction.
In the end, if you are talking about a mixing service denomination isn't the only factor that you should consider when using a Mixer. It should be their safety, privacy and speed.
That's what is a mere deal breaker for me.

True, but:
1. This topic is about "magic numbers". Note that on my list, there are exactly 21 possible values. I don't want to make it 18. And I don't want to start for example with 500 BTC, to end up with 10K satoshi. It is hard to make things tick, so I will leave it as it is.
2. You don't have to use lower coins, if you don't want to (the same with the upper coins: for most people, including me, this list starts with more coins than you own, and that is done on purpose). It is hard to find a wallet in the wild, that will create round numbers, because it is even a very strong suggestion, that you should not use such amounts (and your privacy score is then decreased on many sites, if you stick to some list like mine). Which means, you have to use coin control, and pick everything manually anyway, no matter what fee levels are there (and, guess what, using round coins, and round fees, is even harder, so usually in the current situation, you can for example put your last four digits into fees, if you want to use 10K as a lower bound).

Because that is the point: if you have round numbers, it is harder to spend. And I can see some positive sides in this, because if I would use non-round numbers, then I guess today I would have 10x less BTC, if not less. Round numbers are useful to remind you: "protect your privacy, don't touch those coins". Because if you are somewhat exposed by using round amounts, then you need some extra effort to move those coins in the future. And then, you can easier resist the urge to buy or sell your coins, because the round amount keeps you from moving it at all, unless you know, how exactly you want to mix it, and when you are ready to take the full effort of doing that properly.

This is not the first time, when I disagree with garlonicon: I want to save coins, he wants to spend them. I want to dig deeper into hash functions, he thinks there was no hashing in some challenges, and focus on elliptic curves alone. But yes, the general advice is good: clearly choose your goals, and then adjust all amounts, accordingly to your main goals.

Another thing is that this particular list was created with some "one fits all" style. Which means, I want to use the same settings in networks, where one satoshi per virtual byte is always accepted, no matter what. Also, the lower bound of exactly one thousand, makes it easier to port into other networks, for example, in this way, inside LN this list ends with a single satoshi (because of mainchain compatibility), and starts with 0.05 BTC (because test networks can clearly show us, that building a channel with a higher amount is pointless, and can lead to lose of money, so 50 BTC is definitely too high; also it is better adjusted to LN-based mining, where it is very unlikely, that someone will ever mine more than 0.05 BTC, because the whole reward is based just on discounts for your lightning payments, so I doubt anyone will reach a channel partner, that will allow routing more than 0.05 BTC worth of traffic, without getting paid, and will accept mining shares as a reward, instead of taking routing fees).

So, the scale that starts with 50 BTC, and ends with exactly 1000 satoshis, and contains exactly 21 possible values, seems just like a puzzle, fitting the most cases I could imagine. Having exactly 1K satoshis at the bottom, makes it easy to adjust to millisatoshis, microsatoshis, nanosatoshis, and so on, because then you just always move everything by three decimal places, and everything fits perfectly. Also, then your upper bound can show you, what is the maximum amount you should put on such ideas. Which means, that for example LN channel with millisatoshis should not exceed 0.05 BTC. And with microsatoshis, instead of millisatoshis, should not exceed 0.00005 BTC. And with nanosatoshis, should not exceed 0.00000005 BTC. Which means, you should never go further than nanosatoshis, because then you lose mainchain compatibility, if you don't introduce fractional satoshis on-chain. Which is good, because it protects you from activating things like infinitely-divisible coins on-chain (this is bad idea, because then for example Ordinals could move from witness to amounts directly, and that would cause a lot of problems, if you would use "almost 4 MB" to just process some single "amount" field, produced by a pool accepting non-standard transactions).