How to prevent my bitcoin address has too many inputs?

[Ayanamirs]

I took advantage of low fees to send all my bitcoins to a new address bc1. I had 31 inputs.

Now I don't want to do this again, what should I do? Only use one address to receive bitcoins?

[ranochigo]

No. Each transaction being sent to your address creates a unspent transaction output or an "input" for your transaction. The number of inputs doesn't change with the number of addresses that you use. Its only related to the number of transactions that you've received or sent. If you're sending a transaction, it may have a change output and that also creates another input. The only way to reduce the number of outputs is to receive less transactions and consolidate them once in a while.

[Thirdspace]

I took advantage of low fees to send all my bitcoins to a new address bc1. I had 31 inputs.

good for you, now with bc1 (native segwit) address you can pay less fee compared to using compressed or segwit address
but be warned most wallets haven't fully implemented segwit compatibility yet
so people using old wallet cannot send to your bc1 address (cmiiw)

Now I don't want to do this again, what should I do? Only use one address to receive bitcoins?

avoid transaction/receiving low amount payment, find a way to effectively receive/send your bitcoin
and take advantage of low tx fee whenever possible to consolidate your unspents like you just did
(re)using one address doesn't make you pay less tx fee, tx fee is based on tx size,
tx size based on number of unspent outputs, number of unspents based on number of transaction you received

[Anti-Cen]

It's very, very complicated this bitcoin thing is with all these inputs and outputs plus mining fees and then
having to credit money back to yourself don't you think.

So much simpler to use private ledgers like Lightning uses don't you think but in this case one of the
restrictions is you cannot move money (Digits) between ledger and only fund them during the time when the channel is
opened, ledger is created

Snooker balls move across the lightning network and bump into each other, it's not like a liquid

What if digits could move between public ledgers and it could be recorded in such a way that you could
establish ownership because the ledger where the digits came from must contain a debit payment and we
forget twenty step down the line where or how the original digits were mined ?

Sure we still have signatures along with public/private keys but it kind of makes things a lot more simpler
and does not mean that the IMF or FED owns it.

[Ayanamirs]

I took advantage of low fees to send all my bitcoins to a new address bc1. I had 31 inputs.

but be warned most wallets haven't fully implemented segwit compatibility yet
so people using old wallet cannot send to your bc1 address (cmiiw)

At least I can receive in my old address and then transfer to my bc1.

[lionelho]

Is this possible? I think the inputs depend on how many UTXOs you need to gather together, in order to achieve the total transfer amount.

[cellard]

No. Each transaction being sent to your address creates a unspent transaction output or an "input" for your transaction. The number of inputs doesn't change with the number of addresses that you use. Its only related to the number of transactions that you've received or sent. If you're sending a transaction, it may have a change output and that also creates another input. The only way to reduce the number of outputs is to receive less transactions and consolidate them once in a while.

How tho?

If you get payments in form of donations for instance, you can't really control that... suppose you are wikileaks and you are taking donations, how do you control that? I don't think you can't without adding risk.

Similarly, if you get paid for example in the signature campaigns, the only thing one can do is ask the manager to go from weekly to monthly payments but that's about it, and the more time you wait to get paid, the higher risk that you end up not getting paid.

Also eventually it just creates a ton of received payments, so when you try to send a big transaction, it will be a ton of inputs and the fee will be big.

I don't see a solution around this, maybe until Schnor sigs and other wizardry is in place.

[bob123]

~snip~
The only way to reduce the number of outputs is to receive less transactions and consolidate them once in a while.

How tho?
~snip~
I don't see a solution around this, maybe until Schnor sigs and other wizardry is in place.

You can't control how often you will recieve small transaction, yes.
But you can choose to consolidate them.

Currently the fees are pretty low. It takes about 30-40 sat/B to get your TX confirmed within the next 1 or 2 blocks.
And The transaction rate usually drops on sunday. Consolidating small inputs sundays is affordable.