Dust Attack Calculator
Free Dust Attack Calculator. Detect tiny unsolicited transactions in your wallet, estimate consolidation costs, and learn how to protect your privacy on-chain.
Based on live BTC price. Actual fees depend on network congestion. Input size assumes P2WPKH (SegWit) transactions.
How to use Dust Attack Calculator
The Dust Attack Calculator helps you decide whether the tiny "dust" UTXOs in your Bitcoin wallet are worth consolidating. Enter how many dust UTXOs you hold, their average size in satoshis, and the current network fee rate, the tool weighs the combined dust value against the fee to sweep it all into one output, so you can see at a glance whether consolidation nets you anything.
Dust attacks work by sending minuscule amounts to thousands of addresses, then watching which outputs get combined in later transactions to deanonymise the owners. Because a dust UTXO often costs more in fees to spend than it is worth, this calculator focuses on the economics, showing when sweeping dust is profitable, when to wait for lower fees, and when it is cheapest to leave the dust untouched.
What do the inputs mean?
Five numeric inputs drive the result: the number of dust UTXOs, the average dust amount in satoshis (Bitcoin Core's relay floor is 546 sats), the current fee rate in sat/vByte, and the input/output sizes in vBytes (a P2WPKH input is ~68 vB, an output ~31 vB). No wallet address is required, you read these figures from your own wallet's coin-control view.
The output shows the total dust value (in sats and USD at the live BTC price), the size and fee of a consolidation transaction, the net value left after that fee, the fee as a percentage of the dust, and a clear verdict — Consolidate Now, Wait for Lower Fees, or Not Worth It. When the fee exceeds the dust value, sweeping destroys value and the tool flags it as uneconomical.
How to interpret results correctly
The dust attack calculator weighs whether cleaning up dust is worth the cost. Dust is the tiny UTXOs attackers scatter across thousands of addresses, hoping you will merge them with your real coins and reveal common ownership. Read the recommendation first — Consolidate Now, Wait for Lower Fees, or Not Worth It, then the net value after the sweep fee: when that fee is a large percentage of the dust, consolidating destroys more value than it recovers.
Know what the dust threshold means on Bitcoin: dust is any UTXO below roughly 546 satoshis, the point at which a coin costs more to spend than it is worth at typical fee rates. This calculator models that Bitcoin/UTXO case. On Ethereum dust works differently, small scam-token transfers meant to bait you into a malicious contract, a separate vector that consolidation math does not apply to.
What scenarios can you model?
UTXO consolidation risk: you have 50 UTXOs in your Bitcoin wallet, 3 of which are dust from unknown senders. If your wallet software automatically selects all UTXOs when building a transaction (common in many wallets), those 3 dust inputs get combined with your real funds, linking the dust sender's tracking address to your entire balance. Plug the count and size of those dust UTXOs in here to see whether sweeping them to a clean output is even worth the fee before you risk linking them.
Ethereum scam-token analogue: your wallet shows a token called 'ClaimReward.xyz' worth '$5,000' that you never purchased. Interacting with it (approving, transferring, or visiting the linked site) can drain your wallet via a malicious approval or phish your keys. This is the Ethereum counterpart to dust and is not something this Bitcoin-focused calculator scores, but the rule is the same: never interact with tokens you did not intentionally acquire.
What should you check before you act?
- Before analyzing your wallet: 1) Export your full transaction history. 2) Identify all incoming transactions you did not initiate. 3) Note the amounts — Bitcoin dust is typically under 1,000 sats; Ethereum dust is often scam tokens worth $0.01–$0.10 in real value regardless of displayed price. 4) Check if your wallet supports UTXO coin control (Bitcoin) or token hiding (Ethereum).
- After the analysis: do NOT interact with any flagged dust transactions. On Bitcoin, use a wallet with coin control to exclude dust UTXOs from future transactions. On Ethereum, hide scam tokens in your wallet UI and never approve token contracts you did not initiate. If you have already spent dust, consider that your address cluster may be compromised, use a fresh address for future high-privacy transactions.
What mistakes make this calculation wrong?
- The most dangerous mistake is interacting with dust tokens on Ethereum/BSC. Clicking 'sell' or 'approve' on a scam token in your wallet can trigger a malicious smart contract that drains your entire wallet. These tokens are designed to look valuable ($5,000+ displayed value) to tempt you into interacting. The real value is near zero, and the interaction cost is potentially your entire wallet balance.
- On Bitcoin, the critical error is allowing automatic UTXO selection to include dust inputs in regular transactions. This links your dust-tracked address to your other addresses, real identity (if any address was KYC'd), and full balance. Always use manual coin control to exclude unknown small UTXOs, even if it means slightly higher fees from selecting fewer, larger inputs.
What is a realistic range to expect?
Dust attack frequency benchmarks: active Bitcoin addresses receive an average of 1–3 dust transactions per year. High-value addresses (>10 BTC) receive 5–15 per year. On Ethereum, active DeFi wallets receive 10–50 scam token transfers per month. These numbers have been increasing annually as tracking tools become more sophisticated. Review your exposure with our gas calculator to understand the cost of UTXO management.
Privacy loss benchmarks: spending a single dust UTXO alongside 5 regular UTXOs exposes the common ownership of all 6 addresses to the dust sender's analysis chain. If any of those addresses were used on a KYC exchange, your full Bitcoin holding becomes linkable to your identity. The privacy cost of one careless transaction can be total de-anonymization.
Execution templates you can reuse
Immediate dust defense workflow: 1) Audit your wallet for dust inputs in its coin-control view, then enter their count and average size here to see whether sweeping them would even cover the fee. 2) Label every dust UTXO you found as 'DO NOT SPEND' in your wallet software. 3) Enable coin control in your Bitcoin wallet (Electrum, Sparrow, Bitcoin Core all support this). 4) For Ethereum, hide all unknown tokens and never interact with them. 5) Consider using a separate wallet for high-privacy transactions.
For ongoing protection: use a new receiving address for each transaction (most HD wallets do this automatically). Never reuse addresses. On Bitcoin, periodically consolidate known-good UTXOs using a CoinJoin service (Wasabi, JoinMarket) to break the chain of traceability before dust analysis can link them.
Data hygiene and model maintenance
Review incoming transactions monthly. Flag any amount under 1,000 sats (Bitcoin) or any unknown ERC-20 token (Ethereum) as potential dust. Maintain a clean UTXO set by periodically consolidating known-safe UTXOs during low-fee periods (weekends, off-peak hours) and freezing or quarantining suspicious ones.
Keep your wallet software updated. Modern wallets increasingly include automatic dust detection, UTXO labeling, and coin control features that reduce manual effort. Sparrow Wallet and Electrum provide the most comprehensive UTXO management for Bitcoin privacy.
Final validation before capital deployment
Confirm a suspicious deposit really is dust by cross-referencing it against known dust patterns: a very small amount, many recipients in the same block, and a sender address linked to tracking services. If it matches, treat it as dust and feed its size and count into the calculator to size up the consolidation cost.
Test your coin control setup by creating a small test transaction using only non-dust UTXOs. Verify on a block explorer that the transaction inputs include only the UTXOs you selected and that no dust UTXOs were automatically included. This confirms your wallet's coin control is working correctly.
Where these numbers come from
This calculator is driven by 1 tracked value across 1 jurisdiction. Each value records the page it was read from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it — the full ledger is on the methodology page.
| Value | On this page | Source of record | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin protocol (standardness / relay policy)Bitcoin Core dust threshold for a standard P2PKH output… | 546 satoshis | github.com protocol | — |
A dash under “Verified” means the value carries over from the initial audit without an individually dated re-check — not that it is known to be stale. See how we verify.
Authoritative sources
Frequently asked questions
What is a crypto dust attack?
A dust attack sends tiny amounts (typically 100–1,000 sats or $0.01 worth of ETH) to thousands of wallets. The attacker then watches whether those dust outputs are spent — if you consolidate them with your real funds, they link your addresses for surveillance or phishing.
How does dust de-anonymize me?
When your wallet creates a tx that combines the dust UTXO with your other UTXOs, on-chain analysis (Chainalysis, Arkham) clusters all those addresses as belonging to one entity. This breaks Bitcoin pseudonymity and can connect KYC'd exchange withdrawals to your "private" cold storage.
How much dust is a typical attack?
Bitcoin dust thresholds: 546 sats (P2PKH), 294 sats (P2SH), 294 sats (SegWit). Attackers often send just above dust limit (e.g., 1,000 sats = $0.70 in 2026). Ethereum dust attacks send 0.0001–0.001 ETH ($0.35–3.50) with malicious airdrop tokens.
How do I protect against dust attacks?
In Bitcoin: enable coin control in your wallet (Sparrow, Electrum) and mark dust UTXOs as "do not spend". In Ethereum: never interact with unknown airdropped tokens — they may be honeypots. Use a fresh receive address for every deposit (HD wallets do this automatically).
Is dust spam dangerous if I never touch it?
Mostly no — dust just sits in your wallet inflating the UTXO count slightly. The risk activates only when you spend it together with real funds. Some wallets auto-consolidate UTXOs to reduce future fees, which can accidentally spend dust — check your wallet's consolidation settings.
Are airdropped tokens always dust attacks?
Not all — legitimate airdrops (UNI 2020, ARB 2023) sent meaningful value. But >90% of unsolicited tokens in 2026 are scams: phishing tokens that redirect to fake claim sites, honeypots that drain you on sell, or surveillance dust. Default policy: ignore anything you did not opt into.
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