Fake-Address Text Outputs Clog Bitcoin's Unspent Database

A recent study by Bitquery has revealed that 96,231 fake-address text outputs are clogging Bitcoin's unspent database.

The study, which scanned 965,135 blocks, found that these outputs remain in the unspent transaction output set and hold approximately 3.2 BTC that is effectively unspendable.

Fake-address text places readable bytes where an address hash would normally go, making it appear as though a spendable output exists to Bitcoin nodes.

Bitquery classified these outputs across 3,286 transactions and estimated that they persist in the current node state unless spent.