Crypto glossary
Dusting attack
A dusting attack sends tiny amounts of crypto, called dust, to many addresses so the sender can track how they are spent and link them to the same owner.
Dust is an amount so small that it is often worth less than the fee needed to move it. On Bitcoin and other UTXO-based chains, a wallet that later spends that dust together with other coins combines them in one transaction, revealing to blockchain analysts that the addresses belong to the same person. The attacker can then try to tie the cluster to an exchange account or a real identity.
The technique has been used for surveillance and deanonymisation, and also to spread scams: dust transactions can carry a memo with a link to a fake website, and on account-based networks like Ethereum, dust and zero-value transfers are often part of address poisoning.
Dust is not dangerous on its own, and it cannot take funds. The safest response is to leave it untouched. Many Bitcoin wallets offer coin control to freeze or mark specific UTXOs, and users should never visit links included in unexpected transfers.
Example
Hundreds of addresses each receive 546 satoshis from the same source; when one owner later spends that output alongside a 0.2 BTC coin, an analyst links both addresses to one wallet.
