Ways To Determine If You Have Bitcoin Dust And Why You Should Dispose It

Consider possessing a $bill in your pocket. Then imagine $100 worth of cents.

The massive difference right?

Bitcoin also has its annoying features and one of such is tine bitcoin pieces known as “dust” which are not so popularly known. Similar to the above comparison, the bitcoin protocol also in some cases need to come up with smaller output coins when users transfer bitcoin, coins that are so small in value that they require more charges to make exchanges than their actual value.

However, since blockchain is restricted and small value transfers,  for instance, $0.01, can equally amount to the same as larger transfers, and from the look of things, too make of such smaller transfer can affect the general system.

Previously, dust was not such a big problem for bitcoin users. However, things changed and as fees peaked in 2017, smaller transfers became more expensive to transact. To sum it up, some developers believe it is high time bitcoin dust is disposed of when prices are low presently.

Just as many other developers out there, Greg Slepak, a decentralized applications developer are predicting a situation wherein bitcoin adoption and transfer fees increases- a probably that might or might not occur.

If such a situation comes up, it is believed that it will be easy to transfer these dust while fees are down, particularly if a user has accumulated a lot of them.

But Slepak is not creating room for this to happen. He explained, “That time might not come again.”

One way for users to dispose of this “dust” is to “consolidate” all of their dust “transaction outputs” to one. Simply put, they need to send one transfer that successfully brings them together.

This is similar to the previous comparison made to exchange a lot of pennies, nickels, and dimes from a dollar bill. But how a user will be able to know and dispose of a dust, depends on their wallet.

Slepak suggests users make use of the Electrum method. An existing simplified payment verification (SPV) wallet, that authenticates transfers will fewer charges which makes it easier to use on mobile phones.

The downside to this method is that it exposes a user’s financial history.