How much BTC do you really have? - the unspendable UTXO

[AngryDwarf]

As fee's are escalating, I wonder how many unspendable UTXO's are out there?

I think what would be interesting is a website that examines the UTXO set, and links to the bitcoinsfee.21.co API.

It could show the amount of UTXO's which are either completely unspendable, or that would cost a high proportion of their BTC's to actually spend those UTXO's. People could put their addresses in and get an estimate of how much BTC they really have if they where to attempt to spend it in a given block confirmation estimate.

I wonder if there are any websites out there that already do this? I suppose those that already host full blockchain explorers could easily implement such a function into their site.

[AgentofCoin]

...
It could show the amount of UTXO's which are either completely unspendable, or that would cost a high proportion of their BTC's to actually spend those UTXO's. People could put their addresses in and get an estimate of how much BTC they really have if they where to attempt to spend it in a given block confirmation estimate.
...

There are some options.

(1) You can wait till the amount of txs in the mempool are very low (5k or lower), then move with low fee.
(Takes time and luck.)
(2) You can gather all your low inputs together in such a way that you can move them all with an appropriate fee.
(Compromises privacy since it links all those addresses together.)
(3) Hold those dust accounts until the future, when those UTXOs become worthy of movement due to price.

What is important is that if you move low UTXOs, they should consolidate to reduce the UTXO size.

This site, though not what you were asking about, may help in some way: https://oxt.me/charts
Click on the "/distributions" tab.

[AngryDwarf]

There are some options.

(1) You can wait till the amount of txs in the mempool are very low (5k or lower), then move with low fee.
(Takes time and luck.)
(2) You can gather all your low inputs together in such a way that you can move them all with an appropriate fee.
(Compromises privacy since it links all those addresses together.)
(3) Hold those dust accounts until the future, when those UTXOs become worthy of movement due to price.

What is important is that if you move low UTXOs, they should consolidate to reduce the UTXO size.

Thankfully I've already done this, originally combining small UTXO's with a larger one as a free transaction even though it would take 3-7 days to confirm. More recently I've paid during low periods to do the same. So fortunately, my UTXO set is not too bad, distributed across a few addresses. I use coin control. I'm thinking there are a lot of people that didn't anticipate this and might be in for an unexpected shock.

[AngryDwarf]

This site, though not what you were asking about, may help in some way: https://oxt.me/charts
Click on the "/distributions" tab.

Thanks for the link. There's quite a bit of worthless change on the blockchain.

[AgentofCoin]

This site, though not what you were asking about, may help in some way: https://oxt.me/charts
Click on the "/distributions" tab.

Thanks for the link. There's quite a bit of worthless change on the blockchain.

Yes. From the data I see from that site, about 2.5 million UTXOs are under 1000 Satoshi.

Heres is an idea:
It could be interesting if an agreement could be created with miners that they agree to relay
those UTXOs for free within each block ONLY to a specific burn address. When users do this,
they could be awarded a burn coin equivalent that can serve some purpose or just be traded
on exchanges. It could be beneficial for the bitcoin community by (1) help clean up the dust
UTXOs by consolidating them to one burn address and (2) add to bitcoin's deflation by destroying
all those inputs from future use and (3) incentivizing people who do not want to retain their
dust UTXOs by converting them into a new token for some other use. (For clarification, this
UTXO token is an altcoin with a separate blockchain, obviously.)

May not be necessary, but could be interesting way to deal with dust UTXOs.

[DannyHamilton]

(2) You can gather all your low inputs together in such a way that you can move them all with an appropriate fee.
(Compromises privacy since it links all those addresses together.)

No matter whether you include the input in a larger transaction, or create a transaction that uses the input all by itself, the input is still going to add at least 147 bytes to the transaction.

Since fees are calculated as satoshis PER BYTE there is going to be a cost associated with getting it confirmed.

I think the viabtc accelerator requires that your transaction pay a fee of at least 10 satoshi per byte.  That means that any UTXO valued at less than 0.00001470 BTC would cost more to spend than it is worth.  Unless the typical fee for confirmation drops below 10 satoshi per byte, you'd be better off just abandoning the input than trying to spend it. It isn't even worth trying to include the UTXO as a fee for another transaction. You'd have to pay more in fees because of the additional input than the input supplies.

UTXO that are valued at exactly 0.00001470 BTC (or just slightly above) would probably be best to just spend entirely as a transaction fee (included in other transactions or not) which would at least eliminate them from the UTXO set and increase the miners reward a bit.

This all remains true so long as viabtc continues to be willing to confirm very low fee transactions (10 satoshi per byte) on request.  If they abandon that behavior, then much larger value UTXO may also become nearly useless.

[AgentofCoin]

(2) You can gather all your low inputs together in such a way that you can move them all with an appropriate fee.
(Compromises privacy since it links all those addresses together.)

No matter whether you include the input in a larger transaction, or create a transaction that uses the input all by itself, the input is still going to add at least 147 bytes to the transaction.

Since fees are calculated as satoshis PER BYTE there is going to be a cost associated with getting it confirmed.

I think the viabtc accelerator requires that your transaction pay a fee of at least 10 satoshi per byte.  That means that any UTXO valued at less than 0.00001470 BTC would cost more to spend than it is worth.  Unless the typical fee for confirmation drops below 10 satoshi per byte, you'd be better off just abandoning the input than trying to spend it. It isn't even worth trying to include the UTXO as a fee for another transaction. You'd have to pay more in fees because of the additional input than the input supplies.

UTXO that are valued at exactly 0.00001470 BTC (or just slightly above) would probably be best to just spend entirely as a transaction fee (included in other transactions or not) which would at least eliminate them from the UTXO set and increase the miners reward a bit.
...

Yes, you are correct.

When I made that statement, I was thinking about low inputs, like around
0.0001 btc or more. In #3 I referenced "dust" but I intended higher than
"dust". In my second comment, I began talking about "dust" and UTXOs
with less than 1000 satoshis in the context you are referring to.

When I stated #2, I really meant combining low inputs (0.0001) with
higher inputs so that the higher inputs would carry the burden.
I wasn't specific enough with my terms and wording in #3 and intended
low input again, as opposed to "dust".

But yes, dust UTXOs are almost impossible to move currently, which is why
I proposed in my second comment the free relay/burn token conversion, only
as a way to lower the UTXOs.

I'm not a coder or in computer science so I don't use termonology correctly.
(Also I have a limited vocabulary in general, lol.)

[Labumi]

Wow, very helpful at all. Indeed the problems still unresolved is the confirmation in the bitcoin: for now is largely a transaction must have a cost greater than usual in order to get a confirmation that quick and precise. And this website is very helpful to provide estimates that the transaction will I do succeed or not in a short time. Maybe I think this website is the first which is quite perfect
 

[AngryDwarf]

But yes, dust UTXOs are almost impossible to move currently, which is why
I proposed in my second comment the free relay/burn token conversion, only
as a way to lower the UTXOs.

No thanks. Burning small UTXO's to accelerate deflation aspects for other bitcoin holders is not my idea of a good solution. Besides, when we are all at least 123 years old or above, we may be technologically able to transact these UTXO's for 1 sat.

[franky1]

with a UTXO becoming an input when spending. and the byte count per input being roughly 148bytes.
and bitcoinfee site showing it costs 180+ sats per byte.

any UTXO at or below 0.00026640 just becomes the miners fee just to spend itself (without factoring in the extra cost for the output)

30cents, loose and on its own is now expected as to be worthless and just handed to a miningpool no matter how you arrange it.

id say keep it.
one day devs might start only handling sats per kilobyte and then as the bitcoin valuation goes up. they reduce it down to 10sat per kb

to then be a cost of 1sat per 100byte (thus costing only 2sat(mathematically under 2) to spend a UTXO)