Dust thresholds
Bitcoin Core treats an output as dust if spending it would cost more than a third of its value at the dust relay fee of 3 sat/vB. The result depends on the script type, because spending a legacy input takes more space than a SegWit or Taproot input. These are policy rules of the most common node software, not consensus rules.
- P2PKH (addresses starting with 1): 546 sats
- P2SH (3โฆ): 540 sats
- P2WPKH (bc1qโฆ): 294 sats
- P2WSH and P2TR (long bc1qโฆ, bc1pโฆ): 330 sats
When a small coin stops being worth it
Spending a coin adds one input to your transaction: about 68 vB for native SegWit, 57.5 vB for Taproot, 91 vB for nested SegWit and 148 vB for legacy. At 20 sat/vB a native SegWit input costs 1,360 sats, so a 1,000-sat coin is a loss to spend. The "worth spending below" value is the fee rate at which the coin exactly pays for itself.
cost to spend = input vsize ร fee rate
left over = coin value โ cost to spend
break-even = coin value รท input vsize (sat/vB)What to do with dust
- Do nothing: unspent coins are not lost; wallets usually skip uneconomic coins automatically.
- Consolidate small coins into one during a cheap mempool (often 1โ3 sat/vB at night or on weekends).
- Be careful with unexpected tiny deposits from unknown senders ("dusting"): spending them together with your other coins links your addresses. Many wallets let you freeze such coins.
Frequently asked questions
+What is the Bitcoin dust limit?
546 sats for legacy P2PKH outputs, 294 for native SegWit P2WPKH and 330 for Taproot and P2WSH, under Bitcoin Core's default dust relay fee of 3 sat/vB.
+Can I send 200 sats?
Not to a single standard output: it is below every dust threshold and nodes will not relay it. Lightning handles tiny amounts better than on-chain transactions.
+Is dust lost forever?
No. It stays in your wallet and can be spent when fees are low enough or combined with other coins.
+Why did I receive a tiny amount from an unknown address?
It may be a dusting attempt to link your addresses when you spend it. Do not spend it together with other coins; freeze it if your wallet supports coin control.
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