<blockquote>
<p>Can't the attacker simply trace the non-dust UTXOs of that address?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, but they can do that without sending dust to it as well.</p>
<p>The point of a dusting attack is making sure the wallet now has many UTXOs assigned to the same address, to increase the chances that one of them gets spent simultaneously with <em>other addresses</em> that wallet has. The attacker then gets to observe what those other addresses are and infer that they're part of the same wallet as the dusted address.</p>
<p>They can make this infererence always, even without dusting it. But dusting it causes the wallet to have more UTXOs to pick from, making it reveal more if those dust UTXOs get spent in many distinct transactions. And in this case, not spending the dust does indeed thwart the attack: the attacker does not get to see more than they would without dusting.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-17T21:19:24.827Z
2023-03-17T21:19:24.827Z
Pieter Wuille
<p>I have an address where small dust amounts have been deposited in 3 or 4 transactions by unknown senders.</p>
<p>I did some research and found it's a &quot;dusting attack&quot;.</p>
<p>The articles also mention that simply not touching the dust UTXOs will thwart the attack.
Is this really true?</p>
<p>Can't the attacker simply trace the non-dust UTXOs of that address?</p>

<traceability><dust><forced-address-reuse>
Can simply not spending the dust thwart dusting attacks?
Jus12
# Can simply not spending the dust thwart dusting attacks?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2023-03-17)

I have an address where small dust amounts have been deposited in 3 or 4 transactions by unknown senders.

I did some research and found it's a "dusting attack".

The articles also mention that simply not touching the dust UTXOs will thwart the attack.
Is this really true?

Can't the attacker simply trace the non-dust UTXOs of that address?

**Tags:** traceability, dust, forced-address-reuse


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2023-03-17. Score: 6 | Accepted answer

> Can't the attacker simply trace the non-dust UTXOs of that address?

Of course, but they can do that without sending dust to it as well.

The point of a dusting attack is making sure the wallet now has many UTXOs assigned to the same address, to increase the chances that one of them gets spent simultaneously with *other addresses* that wallet has. The attacker then gets to observe what those other addresses are and infer that they're part of the same wallet as the dusted address.

They can make this infererence always, even without dusting it. But dusting it causes the wallet to have more UTXOs to pick from, making it reveal more if those dust UTXOs get spent in many distinct transactions. And in this case, not spending the dust does indeed thwart the attack: the attacker does not get to see more than they would without dusting.


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