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This has definitely been asked before but the questions I found were years old and I want to know if the landscape for dealing with this has improved, and if there's a simpler way for an "average user" to consolidate these tiny inputs.

I have lots of transactions from faucets and cloud mining that has been running quite a while now. Even setting my wallet (Trezor) to use the lowest fee will cost more than 1/3 the total value. Is there any way I can consolidate these without getting completely reamed, and without having to have a deep understanding of linux, running bitcoin core, etc.?

I'm on OSX and while I am frequently the most technologically savvy person in my circles, I'm not a linux/bitcoin expert and am more just an early adopter playing around with something new that I only somewhat understand. Would really like to be able to use these btc someday without giving up most of them to fees.

Also my mining is ongoing so I get another small transaction every single day, so this will continue to be an issue for me.

JVC
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2 Answers2

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Just now (July 2017) the mempool is down, which allows for small fees. Usually fees are created by the size of the transaction. With lots of dust, a transaction will have many inputs, and increase in size. That increases the fees. I have seen transactions with low as 5 satoshis per byte. So it's a good time frame.

Similar reply here: Why was the transaction fee more for a 20 mBTC transaction than for a 25 mBTC transaction?

meshcollider
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pebwindkraft
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  • I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. I read the answer at your link but don't understand how it's connected. – JVC Jul 05 '17 at 18:22
  • In general, there is a fee market. Only a few people doing transactions equals low fees. Many people doing transactions, higher fees. The amount of transactions is currently low... good time to consolidate. So the price of your transaction (fee) is defined by the number of "dust entries" (which is a string of many bytes) multiplied with the transaction fee value. In my wallet I could chose this factor, you did not specify, which wallet you use. Electrum? Usually there is an option to define a transaction fee in Satoshis per byte, try to set it to 10 Satoshis per Byte. – pebwindkraft Jul 05 '17 at 23:24
  • I am using a hardware wallet so I don't have any ability to specify the fees this way as far as I know. It just gives me a few options for fees ( low, medium, high, etc.) and that's all. I will have to take a look again though if fees are low right now… – JVC Jul 06 '17 at 00:09
  • So it turns out my hardware wallet has at some point added the ability to set custom fees. However, when selecting that option it states: Setting custom fee is not recommended. If you set too low fee, it might get stuck forever. Needless to say this makes me nervous... I don't want to lose the btc I'm consolidating as it all adds up to a reasonable sum. Suggestions? If I accept their default "low" fee it comes out to 4% of the total... not as bad as it has been in the past but still quite steep! – JVC Jul 06 '17 at 00:17
  • well, 4% is not too bad. I have done many tx with 20Satoshi/bytes (roughly 10% fee), which where then integrated within 3-4 hours. So you could try to go lower, and wait a bit longer... – pebwindkraft Jul 06 '17 at 07:28
  • But I'm worried about the transaction getting stuck and losing my coins, like the warning says. – JVC Jul 06 '17 at 15:07
  • FYI I am attempting a partial transaction now with fee of 5 s/byte. It's taking absolutely forever to process and send but hopefully it actually works... – JVC Jul 09 '17 at 00:31
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I believe the answer given at 1,500% transaction fee and 3,5 months to confirm? is 'the' answer to the dust question (though I am only starting with bitcoin and doing research, this answer makes a ton of sense to me).

Basically, the way to handle dust is to combine it into one place, as it comes in, not make a new address every time - and piggy-back that consolidation onto a 'value' transaction.

That doesn't help much for the dust you have now, perhaps, though it can certainly make a difference to those new ones coming in.

Apps-n-Add-Ons
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  • Yeah it's definitely worth better understanding how & why "dust" is created in the first place. The problem I faced (face) is that I have cloud mining proceeds that come to my wallet every single day, that are always dust... there's nothing I can do to change this, it is delivered daily because the miner will not ever risk holding customer funds longer than required. So I just have to periodically sweep it all somewhere, which royally sucks if tx fees are really high at that time. Fortunately I'm never in a hurry to deal with it, so can wait until a better time, but still it kinda sucks. – JVC Jan 19 '18 at 20:05
  • Well, if it will help, you can sweep it all my way! And, I'd even pay the fees (just to show I'm a nice guy!) :) – Apps-n-Add-Ons Jan 19 '18 at 21:40
  • LOL so generous! What would the internet do without gracious souls like you?! – JVC Jan 20 '18 at 02:13