What is Dust?
A UTXO so small that spending it would cost more in fees than it is worth.
Dust is an artefact of the UTXO model: value that exists but is economically immobile at current fee rates. It becomes spendable again if fees fall far enough.
Unsolicited dust sent to your addresses is usually a "dusting attack" — an attempt to link addresses when you later spend it alongside other coins. Coin-control features let you avoid touching it.
Related terms
UTXO
An unspent transaction output: a discrete chunk of bitcoin locked to a condition. Bitcoin has no account…
Keys & custodyCoin control
A wallet feature that lets you choose which specific UTXOs a transaction spends.
Transactions & feesFee rate (sat/vB)
What a transaction pays per virtual byte of the space it occupies. Miners prioritise by fee rate, not by…
Security & scamsPrivacy (on-chain)
Bitcoin is pseudonymous, not anonymous: every transaction is public forever, and addresses can often be…
This definition is part of the Bitcoin Logical glossary. For the fuller explanation, start with Learn, or see the live numbers on The Bitcoin Signal.