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What Is Dust in Crypto?

What Is Dust?​

Dust is an amount of crypto so small that it's not worth moving: sending it would cost more in network fees than it's worth. The word is used in three related ways:

  • A tiny balance left in your wallet after a send or swap.
  • An amount below a network's dust limit, which the network refuses to send.
  • Unwanted tiny deposits that someone sends to many wallets, often as a scam or to track activity.

Dust Limits on Bitcoin and Similar Networks​

Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and similar networks won't accept a payment smaller than their dust limit, because the fee to spend it later would be higher than the amount itself.

On Bitcoin, the limit depends on the address type. For a legacy address it's 546 satoshis (0.00000546 BTC), and it's a little lower for SegWit addresses that start with bc1q.

If you enter an amount under the limit, or if Max would only send dust, Gem Wallet explains it before you confirm:

The network considers this amount dust - the fee is higher than the amount itself.

Send a larger amount, or wait until your balance is high enough to cover both the amount and the fee.

note

Cardano has a similar rule: each payment must carry a minimum amount of ADA. Gem Wallet shows an error before you confirm if a send would break it. See What are Minimum Balance Requirements for Blockchains?

What Happens to Leftover Dust​

When you send part of a Bitcoin balance, the rest normally comes back to you as change. If that change would be below the dust limit, it can't be sent back as its own output, so it's added to the network fee instead. This is usually a few hundred satoshis at most.

The same applies to Bitcoin swaps: a dust-sized remainder goes to the network fee rather than staying in a payment that the network would reject.

Why a Balance Shows as <0.0001​

To keep lists readable, Gem Wallet shows very small amounts as <0.0001 in the wallet, asset lists, and Activity. Open the asset or the transaction to see the exact amount.

Unwanted Dust Deposits​

Some people send tiny amounts of crypto or tokens to many addresses at once. This can be used to:

  • Track wallets by following how the dust moves later.
  • Plant look-alike addresses in your history, hoping you copy one by mistake. See What Is an Address-Poisoning Scam?
  • Lure you to scam sites through token names or links.

You don't need to do anything with dust you didn't ask for. Don't send it on, don't visit links in token names, and hide unwanted tokens. See How to Hide, Show, and Pin Tokens in Gem Wallet.