Making a consolidation transaction is as simple as making a small withdrawal from your vault.
Consolidation transactions are required when the number of deposits (UTXOs) in your vault nears the physical limit where a hardware device can have problems successfully signing transactions.
Periodic management of UTXOs is necessary when holding the keys to any bitcoin wallet and is something that everyone managing bitcoin keys must occasionally do.
How to consolidate UTXOs within your vault
- Sign in to your Unchained Capital account at my.unchained.com.
- Navigate to your vault by clicking Vaults and then the name of your vault.
- Initiate a withdrawal, sending $5 or more of bitcoin anywhere.
- Yes, anywhere. Here are some ideas: a different Unchained vault, an external wallet/exchange, a software wallet, or even a donation to The Bitcoin Development Fund as shown in our Vault Basics webinar).
- Note the fee that you are being charged for the withdrawal. If the current bitcoin network traffic is high, you may consider performing the withdrawal at a later time to reduce your cost.
- If fees are high, you can use a service like txfees.watch to sign up to be notified when fees fall below a certain threshold.
- Learn more about fees: Why does Unchained charge me a bitcoin transaction fee?
- If you are satisfied with the current network fee, proceed with the withdrawal by clicking Next.
- The withdrawal will automatically indicate that it is placing the remainder of your bitcoin in your vault's "change address." This happens any time you perform a partial withdrawal, and this is the action that consolidates your UTXOs.
- Use two keys to sign for the withdrawal. You may select Unchained Capital's key to be one of the two signers, in which case we will provide our signature for free to help with the consolidation. Please note that it may take up to 3 business days for our signature to be provided.
- You're done! After two keys have signed and you broadcast the transaction, your UTXOs are consolidated.
Note: It may take a few minutes for your device to sign—this is normal. Your device's built-in memory is working overtime to remember all of your past deposits!
In some instances—and with Coldcard Mk3 devices in particular—your device may not have enough memory to sign all of your UTXOs. If this happens, other methods of consolidation are available to you.
Don't hesitate to get in touch with our team—we'll work with you to break your UTXOs up into smaller chunks that you can send to a new vault address.