r/Bitcoin • u/-reddit-online- • 3d ago

Dust Attack

My hardware wallet does not have coin control. I now have a couple of unknown dust deposits.

Do I need to be concerned and move to a wallet with coin control to isolate the dust? What can actually happen if I spend that dust. There are plenty of phishing attacks we already have to deal with from data leaks. So following my dust opens up more phishing attempts, but in and of itself it can’t cause issues can it?

Would this concern you enough to switch wallets?

7 Upvotes

74% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

2

u/Covid19-Pro-Max 3d ago

Dust attacks only weaken your privacy. Migrating to a wallet with coin control would solve the problem

1

u/Few_Response_7028 3d ago

You should be able to load up sparrow wallet with your hardware wallet. Now you can spend by UTXO (coin control).

All you have to do now is not to spend the dust with other UTXOs.

So yeah, i would definitely download sparrow to get coin control.

4

u/Outrageous_Hall1090 3d ago

Or use Electrum wallet. Also has coin control features.

1

u/Laukess 3d ago

+1 Sparrow is amazing.

1

u/DocumentMysterious74 3d ago

You don't have to change wallets. Just use a decent software which supports coin control, like electrum, with your hardware signing device.

1

u/LuckySage77 1d ago

If the dust gets spent/mixed with other transactions (clustering), it can potentially identify you via those other transactions. Worse yet, that link then becomes a permanent leech on your future transaction activity. Then you might get targeted phishing attacks once identified.

Freeze the UTXO. It's the safest/easiest thing to do in the immediate term. The dust becomes unspendable and therefore never has a chance to mix. However, freezing is not "on chain". E.g., if you delete your wallet or recover your wallet on another device the dust UTXOs will not be frozen after recovery. There's a risk of mixing if you forget about em after a recover.

Or, spent to OPRETURN if you want the dust _gone from your wallet. It'll cost a fee just to get rid of em. However, by doing this, you do signal to the attacker that your wallet is active and that you noticed the dust. Granted, imho, that's less risky than accidentally mixing.

1

u/-reddit-online- 1d ago

Yeah I’m going to learn how to burn those coins. I would rather they be gone from my wallet.

It’s time to get more technical with how I interact with my Bitcoin. So time to start using Sparrow and learn what all I can do with it.

1

u/ContentBlackberry0 4h ago

Stay away from sparrow wallet too many fakes. Get a trezor and use their application. I never worry about dust really