With Bitcoin’s price climbing, network traffic - and fees - are set to soar.
Understanding coin control and making a plan when fees are low is key to saving on transaction costs and boosting privacy. Make every sat count by keeping your transactions lean and efficient. 🧵
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Every Bitcoin transaction is built from inputs (UTXOs), and fees are based on the transaction’s size in bytes. Transacting with many small inputs increases the bytes—and the fees.
Consolidating smaller UTXOs (under 1 million sats) into larger ones during low-fee periods is a smart move to prepare for future transactions when fees may spike.
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This example of a UTXO consolidation transaction chose at random in the Blockstream Explorer.
There are 27 inputs in the transaction, the input values range from approximately 0.0025 BTC to 0.1537 BTC, and the final UTXO size, or the total output, is 0.24794586 BTC.
Bitcoin Explorer - Blockstream.info
Blockstream Explorer is an open source block explorer providing detailed blockchain data across Bitcoin, Testnet, and Liquid. Supports Tor and trac...
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Blockstream Green’s coin control feature makes this process simple. When fees are low, you can select and send smaller UTXOs to yourself as one larger UTXO, reducing future fees and keeping your holdings organized.
The result? Lower transaction costs if network demand and fees skyrocket.
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Beyond cost savings, coin control also boosts privacy.
By labeling UTXOs, you can track which coins are linked to KYC exchanges and which are not, helping you avoid co-mingling them when spending—key for on-chain privacy.
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Want to practice coin control off the mainchain and prepare for more complex Bitcoin transactions? Try it out on Liquid using a
@Liquid Network account in Green.
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If you’re using a hardware wallet like the Blockstream Jade, coin control works the same way. You can organize, consolidate, and secure your UTXOs on Green or with other wallet software like Sparrow Wallet.
https://store.blockstream.com/jade
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Whether you’re focused on lowering fees or enhancing privacy, coin control is a small effort with big rewards. Use Blockstream Green to optimize your UTXOs and make every sat count.
Using Jade’s Temporary Signer feature, you can log in with your recovery phrase without overwriting your wallet. Reboot Jade, select Options > Temporary Signer, input your recovery phrase, and confirm the wallet fingerprint matches your PIN-protected wallet. If they match, your backup is solid.
Help spread the word by sharing this post. We've got 3 Jades to give away, so follow and renote for a chance to win one.
https://help.blockstream.com/hc/en-us/articles/7916441689881-How-do-I-check-my-Jade-recovery-phrase-backup
⚡️Users First⚡️
⚔️ xpay is a new experimental plugin designed to optimize payments and improve routing accuracy. Built on askrene, it learns from payment attempts, gets smarter over time, and can remember successful payment paths, retrying them automatically.
⚡️ BOLT12 is no longer an experimental feature in CLN and full support is now live, making it easier to pay and receive offers, improving privacy and usability with the broader network.
🧼 We also shipped improvements to the autoclean plugin, reducing data freeze times for large nodes and allowing for more efficient operation during high-demand periods.
⚡️Developer Tools⚡️
Tooling just got better! cln-grpc is enabled by default, allowing secure interface exposure with the grpc-host option. Plus, the dev-splice command introduces flexibility in channel management, enhanced tracing offers deeper insights into operations.
⚡️Gossip Enhancements⚡️
CLN now connects easily to 10 nodes, requests gossip from one peer every hour, and sends updates to 50 peers. These updates help ensure up-to-date network info, enhancing network resilience and boosting sync speeds across the entire Lightning Network.
Finally, as always, we encourage you to download and test release v24.11. Your feedback is invaluable, so please do share your experiences with the community on Discord or in the comments below.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the team! 🎄⚡️
