What is a bitcoin UTXO?

If you want keep transaction fees down or maintain privacy around your bitcoin spending habits, you need to know about bitcoin UTXOs. In this video, Tom Honzik explains what they are and why they're important to understand for people who hold bitcoin in self-custody.
Read more about UTXOs: unchained.com/blog/what-is-a-...
0:00 Intro
0:31 What is a UTXO?
0:50 How do UTXOs work?
3:11 What is coin control?
3:30 Why do UTXOs matter?
4:40 Conclusion

[@RedBeardOps]

Sparrow has gone a long way helping me understand and manage my UTXOs.... highly recommended. Separating UTXOs of certain types (KYC, non-KYC, etc) into different accounts is also very nice... Thanks for the video on the basics, I'll share this one for sure.

[@charlesauspicks]

Yes, twas helpful... Thanks for sharing.

[@AC_616]

Great video and VERY helpful in explaining UTXOs. Thank you!! Not going to lie, I watched it 3 x's to make sure I understand it...I might even watch it again, if needed. Lol #learning

[@mikewhitepod]

Thanks for the video! Well done.

[@TeshTube]

subbed!

[@distantyahoo]

isn't this basically the Achilles heel of BTC? will it not force a lot of coin to cold storage... aka "dust"?

[@gh4534]

let's say one purchased BTC on an exchange. Say three purchase of $3000 each were made on the exchange for a total value is $9000 on the exchange. I presume there are 3 UTXO? If one moved that BTC to a wallet, would that effectively consolidate into one new UTXO? Assuming $9000 was moved all at once to a wallet?

[@tomhonzik_unchained]

Good question! When you make purchases on an exchange, that doesn't create any UTXOs. The exchange doesn't keep your bitcoin separate from other exchange users. Instead, they just make a note of how much they owe you and everyone else, among their existing balances across whatever UTXOs they have. When you withdraw to self custody, that's when you first receive a UTXO and need to consider UTXO management.

[@Tweston3ny]

So how to manage them?

[@billennis5032]

Can UTXOs be combined after they are in your wallet? Or do you need to initiate a transfer to yourself to do that? Ex let’s say I have 100 incoming transactions of size .01 BTC. So a total of 1 BTC across 100 utxos. Can I combine them in some way or could I send them all back to the same wallet?

[@tomhonzik_unchained]

They can be combined, but only by grouping them together and sending them back to yourself. This is called a UTXO consolidation!

[@billennis5032]

@@tomhonzik_unchained Thanks! And that could require one transaction? With fees going higher that might matter.

[@aggressivecrypto925]

Never Sell Your Bitcoin.