UTXO Consolidation (3 inputs, 1 output) - Legacy P2PKH

To follow along this tutorial

  • Clone the Github repository

  • cd code

  • npm install or yarn install

  • Execute the transaction code by typing node tx_filename.js

  • Alternatively you can enter the commands step-by-step by cd into ./code then type node in a terminal to open the Node.js REPL

  • Open the Bitcoin Core GUI console or use bitcoin-cli for the Bitcoin Core commands

  • Use bx aka Libbitcoin-explorer as a handy complement

Let’s do UTXO consolidation, also called an aggregating transaction.

The idea is that a single signer aggregates many small UTXOs into a single big UTXO. This represents the real-world equivalent of exchanging a pile of coins and currency notes for a single larger note.

In legacy P2PKH transaction, each input contains a signature, which quickly increases the size of your transactions if you need to spend multiple UTXOs, resulting in high fees. Consolidation allows to group multiple UTXOs in one, which will result in less fees when spent.

Reducing the number of UTXOs also frees the UTXOs database (chainstate), making it easier to run a full node, marginally improving Bitcoin’s decentralisation and overall security, which is always nice.

Finally, consolidation gives an opportunity to update the addresses you use for your UTXOs, for example to roll keys over, switch to multisig, or switch to Segwit bech32 addresses.

For this example we will consolidate three P2PKH UTXOs (referencing each of them with three inputs) to one Segwit P2WPKH UTXO.

Create UTXOs to spend from

First we need to create three UTXOs.

Import libraries, test wallets and set the network
const bitcoin = require('bitcoinjs-lib')
const { alice } = require('./wallets.json')
const network = bitcoin.networks.regtest

UTXO consolidation makes sense if we have multiple payments on a single address, or multiple payments on different addresses controlled by a single person or entity.

Let’s use different P2PKH addresses, all controlled by Alice. We will have one payment to alice_1 P2PKH address, one to alice_2 P2PKH address and one to alice_3 P2PKH address.

Let’s send this three payments, of 0.2 BTC each, in a single transaction using sendmany.
sendmany "" '{"n4SvybJicv79X1Uc4o3fYXWGwXadA53FSq":0.33, "mgZt5Fqzszdwf8hDgZt3mUf7js611aKRPc":0.33, "n3ZLcnCtfRucM4WLnXqukm9bTdb1PWeETk":0.33}'

We have now three UTXOs locked with Alice public keys hash. In order to spend it, we refer to it with the transaction id (txid) and the output index (vout), also called outpoint.

Get the output indexes of the transaction, so that we have their outpoint (txid / vout).
gettransaction "txid"

Find the output index (or vout) under details  vout.
Each UXTO appears twice, once in the 'send' category, once in the 'receive' category.
You may think that the indexes will be 0, 1 and 2. If so you are forgetting that there is also a change UTXO, that can be located at any position.
The command gettransaction doesn’t display the change UTXO, but a decoderawtransaction does.

Creating the aggregating transaction

Now let’s spend the UTXOs with BitcoinJS, consolidating them into a single P2WPKH UTXO.

Create Alice’s keypairs.
const keyPairAlice1 = bitcoin.ECPair.fromWIF(alice[1].wif, network)
const keyPairAlice2 = bitcoin.ECPair.fromWIF(alice[2].wif, network)
const keyPairAlice3 = bitcoin.ECPair.fromWIF(alice[3].wif, network)
Get the recipient address.
const p2wpkhAlice1 = bitcoin.payments.p2wpkh({pubkey: keyPairAlice1.publicKey, network})
console.log('P2WPKH address')
console.log(p2wpkhAlice1.address)
Create a BitcoinJS transaction builder object.
const txb = new bitcoin.TransactionBuilder(network)
Add the three inputs by providing the outpoints.
txb.addInput('TX_ID', TX_VOUT)
txb.addInput('TX_ID', TX_VOUT)
txb.addInput('TX_ID', TX_VOUT)
Add the P2WPKH output with an amount of 0.99 BTC.
txb.addOutput(p2wpkhAlice1.address, 989e5)

The miner fee is calculated by subtracting the outputs from the inputs.
(33 000 000 + 33 000 000 + 33 000 000) - 98 900 000 = 100 000 100 000 satoshis equals 0,001 BTC, this is the miner fee.

Alice adds the correct signature to each input.

For each input, we have to select the right keypair to produce signatures that satisfy the locking scripts of the three UTXOs we are spending.
We have this information by calling gettransaction.
For example
txb.sign(0, keyPairAlice1)
txb.sign(1, keyPairAlice3)
txb.sign(2, keyPairAlice2)

txb.sign(0, keyPairAlice)
txb.sign(1, keyPairAlice)
txb.sign(2, keyPairAlice)
Finally we can build the transaction and get the raw hex serialization.
const tx = txb.build()
console.log('Transaction hexadecimal:')
console.log(tx.toHex())
Inspect the raw transaction with Bitcoin Core CLI, check that everything is correct.
decoderawtransaction TX_HEX

Broadcasting the transaction

It’s time to broadcast the transaction via Bitcoin Core CLI.
sendrawtransaction TX_HEX
Inspect the transaction.
getrawtransaction TX_ID true

Observations

We note that each input contains a 71 bytes signature (on average), resulting in a large and costly transaction. Spending Segwit UTXOs results in much smaller transaction since the input scripts are empty and Segwit data are discounted. Also, the implementation of Schnorr signatures into Bitcoin will allow to aggregate all those signatures into a single one.

« Typical Transaction (1 input, 2 outputs) - Legacy P2PKH Batching Transaction (1 input, 5 outputs) - Legacy P2PKH »