Is this a wallet tracking method? receiving 0.00000546 every few days

[theodorejgesano]

My btc wallet keeps receiving this amount: +0.00000546 every 7-10 days or so. I'm 100% sure that i never registered with it anywhere. I read a few google links regarding this and it's seems it's the lowest amount that can be sent from some wallets. I don't know why i'm receiving this amounts is this a method to analyze and track bitcoin wallets or something similar? Did this happen to anyone else? Very curious what it is because once, it's an accident. Multiple times, it's no accident.

[1714902084]

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[1714902084]

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[1714902084]

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[TryNinja]

Most cases I’ve seen this happening was for deanonimization or advertising purposes.

A deanonymizing dust attack works by sending dust to large amounts of addresses. The assumption is that when people send transactions/perform consolidations in the future, dust from multiple addresses will be grouped into a single transaction, thus revealing many addresses controlled by a single entity, since the dust would be swept in a single tx.

(this is somewhat of a simplification, since most parties interested in performing such attacks will also be using other data to group together multiple independent txs).

The best way to prevent against this attack is to:

Never spend dust in a transaction that consumes inputs from addresses that have not previously been linked by a transaction.
Don't spend dust at all.
This will lead to some utxo bloat, but if you are reusing your addresses, you can spend the dust when spending another utxo from the same address. If you are not reusing addresses, simply never spend it.

Some wallets, such as the Samourai Wallet (no affiliation), provide an option to mark dust as unspendable. For systems that you build, you will have to ignore such outputs yourself.

Source: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/81509

An example of advertising an service with dust spam: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5077944.0

[LoyceV]

i'm receiving this amounts is this a method to analyze and track bitcoin wallets or something similar?

One way to prevent being tracked, is by using coin control (this depends on your wallet) and manually choosing which inputs you use. As long as the dust input uses is on the same Bitcoin address, it doesn't help an attacker to track your addresses.

If however your wallet uses all small inputs automatically, odds are it links several of your addresses together.

If fees go up to just a few sat/byte, it will cost more to spend the dust than it's worth.
Some wallets allow locking unspent inputs, Bitcoin Core for instance gives this option:
Option > Wallet > Enable coin control features > OK
Send > Inputs > "right mouse" on an input > Lock unspent.

[bitmover]

If fees go up to just a few sat/byte, it will cost more to spend the dust than it's worth.
Some wallets allow locking unspent inputs, Bitcoin Core for instance gives this option:
Option > Wallet > Enable coin control features > OK
Send > Inputs > "right mouse" on an input > Lock unspent.

In Electrum it is very simple to do it. Just click in the Coin tab and choose which UTXO you want to spend (each of those dusts are going to be one UTXO individually).

It´s probably not worth claiming them, if there are too many transactions.

Maybe the best option would be to stop using that address and wallet.

Someone is tracking you. I think it would be a case to use a coin Mixer. Send all your funds from that wallet/address to a mixer a then move it to a fresh new wallet.

[jackg]

That's what this is then!

It's on a chain from that electrum hacker:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/6e41f6acb7541cf4ffeddf126dbd87a01092be8d021a897350a6a332ba67a071

Total Input   0.0215 BTC
Total Output   0.01897364 BTC
Fees   0.00252636 BTC

Somebody may be trying to ddos the network too!

Probably the biggest transaction you can get in the mempool without sending directly to a miner.

[LoyceV]

That's what this is then!

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/6e41f6acb7541cf4ffeddf126dbd87a01092be8d021a897350a6a332ba67a071

I've checked a few:
b4890f7af897b5a056a3f5d5d0609c32b0f5a522d1a64edfb7212ca0a0f972a6: no privacy compromised, but paid more fee than the input was worth.
5082b0d31b180e841b6eeb1a3f04f2628fb8257178971a1f9e1ff1b688716d2f: no privacy compromised, but paid much more fee than the input was worth.
I'm disappointed wallets still don't ignore dust when it costs more in fee than it's worth!
90956c2fad3ded1e3d681056732813f801ffc6220e0380e2b7ca55f5226e4a39: 2 addresses linked together by dust.

[jackg]

You only need 140 Sat's to make it currently possible.

I was considering doing a massive transaction pool so people can all consolidate their dust and pay very little for it. I have some of my own dust to consolidate...
I used 750 Sats in dust to fund three transactions of my own.

My issue is allowing to send dust as change. If I have 32 sats in dust they may as well jus put the fee up.

[nc50lc]

That's what this is then!

It's on a chain from that electrum hacker:

Another big possibility is: it could be an investigation attempt (by police or private) to find the culprit.
I've seen multiple thread reports regarding that Electrum hacking incident and been contacted via PM with replies to my post(s). One particular person said that police had successfully uncover some leads using the info.
Apparently, doing such thing can possibly uncover most of the hacker's addresses and check where the funds are stored.

An attack or not, I'm pretty sure that it was a deanonymizing dust attack.

[jackg]

That's what this is then!

It's on a chain from that electrum hacker:

Another big possibility is: it could be an investigation attempt (by police or private) to find the culprit.
I've seen multiple thread reports regarding that Electrum hacking incident and been contacted via PM with replies to my post(s). One particular person said that police had successfully uncover some leads using the info.
Apparently, doing such thing can possibly uncover most of the hacker's addresses and check where the funds are stored.

An attack or not, I'm pretty sure that it was a deanonymizing dust attack.

I mean it has to be. If it was to burn funds they'd generate an unused address and just send the coins there...

So it must be some sort of attack. Its probably a private investigation, the feds don't seem too intelligent on bitcoin and blockchain as there'd be more regulations on the currency. I'm not sure what they're going to do if they find the attacker. Especially if the attacker already offloaded their funds through a mixing service or an exchange.

[KingZee]

This dust deanonymisation technique would only work on a few wallets where you can't control which coins or addresses you spend from. For it to work they rely on you to consolidate your inputs into one transaction, linking them together and effectively confirming that you're the owner of those addresses.

So it must be some sort of attack. Its probably a private investigation, the feds don't seem too intelligent on bitcoin and blockchain as there'd be more regulations on the currency. I'm not sure what they're going to do if they find the attacker. Especially if the attacker already offloaded their funds through a mixing service or an exchange.

Its not a good analogy to assume the feds arent extremely aware of cryptos just because there are no regulations on it. Security and Intelligence agencies know probably a lot more than we think. Remember Vault7?

[cellard]

This is why using wallets that don't have "Coin Control" type features as seen on the Core client, ideally with a nice GUI because it's easy to screw up with a terminal when dealing with multi-input transactions is just insane. You should have full control of your money at all times. If you just click "send" you don't really know what's going on.

And relevant to this spam annoyance, I remember back then some guys were spamming their websites, or sending offensive messages or some bullshit with the dust spam. Imagine that you sell your coins for fiat and authorities look at your addresses and see spam with messages like that. I hope they understand that it's just stupid trolls. Anyway the best thing you can do is just ignore these addresses with Coin Control.

Anyone knows if there is a way in the Bitcoin Core GUI to block certain inputs? I want to block all the stupid spam dust that I have to guarantee I don't accidentally move them ever. There should be a way to do this if there isn't already, it would be pretty handy.

[LoyceV]

Anyone knows if there is a way in the Bitcoin Core GUI to block certain inputs? I want to block all the stupid spam dust that I have to guarantee I don't accidentally move them ever.

See:

Some wallets allow locking unspent inputs, Bitcoin Core for instance gives this option:
Option > Wallet > Enable coin control features > OK
Send > Inputs > "right mouse" on an input > Lock unspent.

I never received dust spam, but if I would get it, I'd just consolidate all inputs at that address while fees are low.

[jackg]

I never received dust spam, but if I would get it, I'd just consolidate all inputs at that address while fees are low.

I'd be happy with 546 sats too! Be a nice way to fund at least 2 transactions. I'm intentionally bad at coin control, I set wallets to preserve fees as apposed to preserving privacy.

Electrum has nice coin control features. You can host a private electrum node and use that personally if you want more control, I'm not sure what bitcoin core has I never generated an address on it.