A coin selection strategy based on the greedy and genetic algorithm

Abstract

Coin selection method refers to the process undergone when selecting a set of unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) from a cryptocurrency wallet or account to use as inputs in each transaction. The most applied coin selection method that UTXO-based cryptocurrencies currently employ is an algorithm that decides on a certain set of UTXOs that matches the target amount and limits the transaction fee. However this approach trades off favourable maintenance overhead of the entire network for low transaction fees, as many low-value UTXOs known as “dust” is produced. Over time, this will impact the scalability and management of the cryptocurrency network as the global set of UTXOs become larger. Therefore, there is an urgency to find a higher-performing coin selection method suitable for UTXO-based cryptocurrencies. This paper proposes a method based on the greedy and genetic algorithm for effectively choosing sets of UTXOs in Bitcoin. The main objective of this coin selection strategy is to get as close as possible to the target while also maintaining and possibly reducing the number of UTXO inputs.