<p>You can create unlimited addresses and then send amounts of bitcoins which are over the fee-less minimum transaction limit to your own addresses.  That means you can technically spam the blockchain for the price of the electricity. </p>

<p>A transaction may be safely sent without fees if these conditions are met:</p>

<ul>
<li>It is smaller than 1,000 bytes.</li>
<li>All outputs are 0.01 BTC or larger.</li>
<li>Its priority is large enough (see the Technical Info section below)</li>
</ul>

<p><a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees" rel="nofollow">https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees</a></p>

<p>Anyone know how the bitcoin core could stop you from doing that without blocking your IP from the network??  Even in that case, all you need to do is spoof your IP address over and over again>>> </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-04T17:03:24.973Z
2015-05-04T22:07:09.337Z
2015-05-04T22:07:09.337Z
user26344
<p>It's possible, but Bitcoin was designed to have humans filtering transactions for just this reason. Miners have the responsibility to keep the blockchain free of spam, and nodes can help filter it at the network/relay level. Often this is done by only relaying/mining transactions that have certain properties (ie, obviously aren't likely to be spam because they move a high volume of old coins) or transaction fees (so that spamming is expensive). Some spammers exploit human weakness and trick gamblers into paying fees for them, so some miners employ more advanced spam filters to try to identify these as well.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-12-22T02:21:49.283Z
poetic to read this in 2023
WhoIsNinja
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-21T07:27:33.623Z
2013-11-21T07:27:33.623Z
Luke Dashjr
<p>Every transaction has to be confirmed and fees are required, miners rely on them. This has been discussed on bitcointalk and very nice explanation is <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=156334.msg1711869#msg1711869" rel="nofollow">here</a>. Also you can check <a href="http://www.bitcoinfees.com/" rel="nofollow">bitcoinfees.com</a> for informations related too a transaction fee.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-20T13:48:42.573Z
2013-11-20T13:48:42.573Z
dmnc
<p>There was similar thread of someone sending the smallest amount of bitcoin (probably for spamming puposes) here. However I put on my blog a bitcoin address and so far have recieved any smallest amount. Bitcoin price is pretty high so sending smallest ammout (0.00000001) wouldn't be cost effective spamming. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-20T11:16:01.167Z
And what if someone makes bigger than 0.01 BTC transactions from one of his address to another all day. Making thousands of meaningless transactions, those totally spamming the blockchain. That wouldn't even cost much I believe. Is this possible?
Barna Kovacs
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-20T11:04:05.080Z
2013-11-20T11:04:05.080Z
blogger
<p>Such transactions will be subject to fees.  You can read about the fee schedule <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees">here</a>.  The fees apply if the transactions send a small amount of coins, or send the same coins over and over (giving the transactions a low priority score).  </p>

<p>The fee is set at BTC 0.0001 per 1000 bytes.  Thus someone who wants to spam the block chain with 10 MB will have to pay at least BTC 1 in fees.  That's about US$500 at today's prices, and it causes the block chain to increase in size by about 0.1%, which nobody will probably even notice.  If you're going to spend $500 on mischief, you'll get a lot more bang for the buck by spending it on eggs and toilet paper!</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-20T17:34:19.160Z
So basically the network knows if I'm sending that 0.1 BTC between my 2 addresses all day, and deprioritizes it?
Barna Kovacs
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-20T18:00:15.810Z
@Rails: Right.  Specifically, it looks for the age of the transaction outputs that are being spent.  If you are transferring coins that were previously transfered a short time before, the priority goes down, and you have to pay a fee to get the transaction recorded.
Nate Eldredge
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-08-26T17:03:31.483Z
who gets the fee?
SuperUberDuper
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-08-26T18:08:57.960Z
@SuperUberDuper: It goes to the miner who includes that transaction in a block.  http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/9895/who-gets-bitcoin-transaction-fees/9897#9897
Nate Eldredge
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-20T16:18:08.290Z
2013-11-20T16:18:08.290Z
Nate Eldredge
<p>Someone could buy or mine bitcoins, and send them in small transactions all day to spam the blockchain.</p>

<p>Is this possible? And could this mean the end of the trust people have in bitcoin?</p>

<p>edit:</p>

<p>And what if someone makes bigger than 0.01 BTC transactions from one of his address to another all day. Making thousands of meaningless transactions, those totally spamming the blockchain. That wouldn't even cost much I believe. Is this possible?</p>

<blockchain><attack><dust>
Is it possible to spam the bitcoin network with 'dust'?
Barna Kovacs
# Is it possible to spam the bitcoin network with 'dust'?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-11-20)

Someone could buy or mine bitcoins, and send them in small transactions all day to spam the blockchain.

Is this possible? And could this mean the end of the trust people have in bitcoin?

edit:

And what if someone makes bigger than 0.01 BTC transactions from one of his address to another all day. Making thousands of meaningless transactions, those totally spamming the blockchain. That wouldn't even cost much I believe. Is this possible?

**Tags:** blockchain, attack, dust


---

## 5 answers

### Answer by username_6 on 2013-11-20. Score: 8 | Accepted answer

Such transactions will be subject to fees. You can read about the fee schedule [here](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees). The fees apply if the transactions send a small amount of coins, or send the same coins over and over (giving the transactions a low priority score).

The fee is set at BTC 0.0001 per 1000 bytes. Thus someone who wants to spam the block chain with 10 MB will have to pay at least BTC 1 in fees. That's about US$500 at today's prices, and it causes the block chain to increase in size by about 0.1%, which nobody will probably even notice. If you're going to spend $500 on mischief, you'll get a lot more bang for the buck by spending it on eggs and toilet paper!

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: So basically the network knows if I'm sending that 0.1 BTC between my 2 addresses all day, and deprioritizes it?  
> **username_6**: @Rails: Right.  Specifically, it looks for the age of the transaction outputs that are being spent.  If you are transferring coins that were previously transfered a short time before, the priority goes down, and you have to pay a fee to get the transaction recorded.  
> **username_7**: who gets the fee?  
> **username_6**: @username_7: It goes to the miner who includes that transaction in a block.  http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/9895/who-gets-bitcoin-transaction-fees/9897#9897  

---

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-05-04. Score: 1

You can create unlimited addresses and then send amounts of bitcoins which are over the fee-less minimum transaction limit to your own addresses. That means you can technically spam the blockchain for the price of the electricity.

A transaction may be safely sent without fees if these conditions are met:

* It is smaller than 1,000 bytes.
* All outputs are 0.01 BTC or larger.
* Its priority is large enough (see the Technical Info section below)

<https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees>

Anyone know how the bitcoin core could stop you from doing that without blocking your IP from the network?? Even in that case, all you need to do is spoof your IP address over and over again>>>


---

### Answer by username_2 on 2013-11-21. Score: 1

It's possible, but Bitcoin was designed to have humans filtering transactions for just this reason. Miners have the responsibility to keep the blockchain free of spam, and nodes can help filter it at the network/relay level. Often this is done by only relaying/mining transactions that have certain properties (ie, obviously aren't likely to be spam because they move a high volume of old coins) or transaction fees (so that spamming is expensive). Some spammers exploit human weakness and trick gamblers into paying fees for them, so some miners employ more advanced spam filters to try to identify these as well.

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: poetic to read this in 2023  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2013-11-20. Score: 0

Every transaction has to be confirmed and fees are required, miners rely on them. This has been discussed on bitcointalk and very nice explanation is [here](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=156334.msg1711869#msg1711869). Also you can check [bitcoinfees.com](http://www.bitcoinfees.com/) for informations related too a transaction fee.


---

### Answer by username_5 on 2013-11-20. Score: 0

There was similar thread of someone sending the smallest amount of bitcoin (probably for spamming puposes) here. However I put on my blog a bitcoin address and so far have recieved any smallest amount. Bitcoin price is pretty high so sending smallest ammout (0.00000001) wouldn't be cost effective spamming.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: And what if someone makes bigger than 0.01 BTC transactions from one of his address to another all day. Making thousands of meaningless transactions, those totally spamming the blockchain. That wouldn't even cost much I believe. Is this possible?  

---

