What happens to those few satoshis left behind in old accounts?

[Blawpaw]

I've been thinking, and I would like to know what happens to those few satoshis that are left on accounts that will not be used anymore.

Miners often change pool always leaving some satoshis behind. What happens to those satoshis?

[gadman2]

They probably sit there unless the exchange has some sort of process of sweeping dust over a certain period of inactivity.

[mezmerizer9]

It just sits at the site own bitcoin address not on the specific bitcoin address of yours, although it shows on your balance! But you will never gonna able to withdraw the balance if you don't use that site again! So it belongs to the sites actually!

[Blawpaw]

It just sits at the site own bitcoin address not on the specific bitcoin address of yours, although it shows on your balance! But you will never gonna able to withdraw the balance if you don't use that site again! So it belongs to the sites actually!

That's what I've thought! So in this case, sites profit a lot from those few satoshis that they take from every old account that isn't used anymore... besides fees, donations and other costs, this should get them an extra income.

[eleuthria]

It just sits at the site own bitcoin address not on the specific bitcoin address of yours, although it shows on your balance! But you will never gonna able to withdraw the balance if you don't use that site again! So it belongs to the sites actually!

That's what I've thought! So in this case, sites profit a lot from those few satoshis that they take from every old account that isn't used anymore... besides fees, donations and other costs, this should get them an extra income.

Even if those sites had a million users with some satoshis left over, it's barely enough to add up to more than a rounding error in the big picture.  It's hardly "profiting a lot".  They made orders of magnitude more off of 0.01-2%(+) fees off a few large users than the combined dust of every account.

[Amph]

It just sits at the site own bitcoin address not on the specific bitcoin address of yours, although it shows on your balance! But you will never gonna able to withdraw the balance if you don't use that site again! So it belongs to the sites actually!

That's what I've thought! So in this case, sites profit a lot from those few satoshis that they take from every old account that isn't used anymore... besides fees, donations and other costs, this should get them an extra income.

Even if those sites had a million users with some satoshis left over, it's barely enough to add up to more than a rounding error in the big picture.  It's hardly "profiting a lot".  They made orders of magnitude more off of 0.01-2%(+) fees off a few large users than the combined dust of every account.

it can be if in the future bitcoin go to the moon like many are expecting, it would repeat the story, like when we were thinking that 1k bitcoin back then wasn't much, now this could happen again

1M satoshi with a good price might be worth a tons, so i doubt those dust will be ever lost

[aakashsangwan]

I think that pool owners let them stay in those particular accounts and when they close the account or the pool then they take out all the dust from all abandoned pool accounts.

[Stedsm]

They sit there like dust, but will be worth something.
But as of today, nobody is worried about those few satoshis, just think that if 10K customers on an exchange leave 0.0003 in their account and forget, the exchange will have 3 BTC saved with them for nothing.
So, we should not compare it with "dust".

[Herbert2020]

as long as they have access to their wallet or those bitcoin addresse's private keys the dust is there maybe they can use it in a pool of other addresses to sweep them . but they dont care about those amounts since they are earning a lot more it is not even seen.

[Stedsm]

as long as they have access to their wallet or those bitcoin addresse's private keys the dust is there maybe they can use it in a pool of other addresses to sweep them . but they dont care about those amounts since they are earning a lot more it is not even seen.

Check my previous message quoted below and you will know whether they care or not.
Amounts can't be smaller as compared to unlimited number of customers that these places have.

They sit there like dust, but will be worth something.
But as of today, nobody is worried about those few satoshis, just think that if 10K customers on an exchange leave 0.0003 in their account and forget, the exchange will have 3 BTC saved with them for nothing.
So, we should not compare it with "dust".

[aakashsangwan]

as long as they have access to their wallet or those bitcoin addresse's private keys the dust is there maybe they can use it in a pool of other addresses to sweep them . but they dont care about those amounts since they are earning a lot more it is not even seen.

Check my previous message quoted below and you will know whether they care or not.
Amounts can't be smaller as compared to unlimited number of customers that these places have.

They sit there like dust, but will be worth something.
But as of today, nobody is worried about those few satoshis, just think that if 10K customers on an exchange leave 0.0003 in their account and forget, the exchange will have 3 BTC saved with them for nothing.
So, we should not compare it with "dust".

Still it will worth next to nothing as they are making more money from the fees paid by the users.
But to an individual it is a fortune.