Key Points / Dust Attack
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Dust attack is an attack on privacy
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If you were dusted, your bitcoin wallet is receiving tiny incoming spam transactions
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If you spend them, it becomes public knowledge that your address has a living owner
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If you cash out, your previous bitcoin activity becomes linked to you IRL
Dust attack is an attack on privacy that happens on the bitcoin blockchain.
A potentially malicious actor is sends the smallest possible transaction amount to large amount of addresses and presumably runs a bot that watches from which addresses the coins were moved and where.
Following the movements of the dust may eventually lead to a transaction that will be identifiable in real life, such as an online order or a p2p cash sale. It can also be used to link different wallets owned by the same person.
The counteraction to do if your wallet “got dusted” is called coin control.
September 2020 Dust Attack
There was a dust attack going on in September 2020. The dust amount was 547 satoshis and the attack posed as an advertisement for a website memo dot sv:
Can you prevent a dust attack?
No.
Anyone can send bitcoin to any address.
What to do if your wallet was dusted
You have the following options:
- Spend the dust by sending it to a miner
- Spend the non-dust by sending it to a new wallet
Generally, spending everything but the dust is a better option. More in comments under Reddit.
Dusted address on a Ledger wallet
If the address that got dusted was in a wallet on any Ledger device, or if you have a spare Ledger wallet to use, your solution is easy.
Ledger Live supports coin control in the dialog you go through when sending crypto out. You simply click on “coin control” and then unselect the dust.
If you use change addresses, transaction of any size will move all your non-dusted coins from the dusted address.
Dusted address on a basic crypto wallet
If the address that got dusted was under a basic crypto wallet like Exodus, Jaxx or Blockchain.com, you will have to use the Electrum wallet.
Electrum is a bitcoin wallet that supports advanced features such as what’s called coin control. That means you can decide which incoming transaction you want to spend an which not, even if they were both sent to the same address.
An indepth look at Dust Attack is here.
More on Dust Attack
