Dust Error: What Is It and What Can I Do?
Bitcoin doesn't store your balance as one number. It keeps track of the separate unspent pieces of BTC you received. Guarda adds those pieces together and shows you the total.
Those separate pieces are called UTXOs (Unspent Transaction Outputs).
Bitcoin UTXO Explained
Imagine your wallet contains two coupons:
- $10.14
- $10.89
Guarda shows a total balance of $21.03, but underneath, these are still two separate pieces of BTC. Every time you receive BTC, you receive a new UTXO. When you spend BTC, your transaction returns the remaining amount to you as a new UTXO. You spend a coupon and receive change as another coupon.
This isn't unique to Bitcoin only. The same principle applies to other cryptocurrencies that use the UTXO model, including Litecoin, Dogecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, and other Bitcoin-like networks.
What Is Dust?
Now imagine that every coupon costs something to process. You have a coupon worth $10, and processing it adds $0.15 to the transaction cost. But you also have a tiny coupon worth $0.10. If using that coupon adds $0.15 to the transaction cost, spending it doesn't make economic sense.
Very small amounts like these are commonly referred to as dust. Technically, Bitcoin has a specific dust threshold for transaction outputs. You may also have small UTXOs that are above that threshold but are simply uneconomical to spend at the current network fee rate.
Dust is a characteristic of Bitcoin and other UTXO-based networks, not a Guarda fee or an amount withheld by Guarda.
What Can I Do?
Send the Spendable Amount
You don't necessarily have to send your entire displayed balance. If Guarda can construct the transaction using your economically spendable UTXOs, you can send that amount and leave the tiny UTXOs in your wallet.
Wait for Network Fees to Decrease
Network fees change. Remember our $0.10 coupon that costs $0.15 to process? If network fees decrease and processing it later costs only $0.03, that small UTXO becomes economical to spend.
So, if you are blocked from sending your full balance due to small UTXOs, waiting for lower network activity can help.
Adjust the Network Fee
You can also check the Advanced Options when creating a transaction in Guarda and adjust the network fee.
A lower fee may make small UTXOs more economical to spend. However, a transaction with an insufficient fee usually takes significantly longer to confirm, so don’t reduce it too much to avoid significant delays.
Can I Check My UTXOs?
Yes. Guarda displays your wallet balance as a total, but you can inspect the individual UTXOs associated with your address using a blockchain explorer, for example, in Blockchair.