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Universe Wallet

Protected outputs

On Bitcoin, an inscription lives inside an ordinary coin. There is no separate container for it. A wallet that treats every coin as plain money can hand your collectible to a miner as change, and that is the single most common way inscriptions are lost.

Universe Wallet classifies every coin before it can be selected. Coins that carry something are held back from ordinary payments.

How asset-bearing coins are kept out of an ordinary paymentFive coins owned by one wallet enter a classifier. The classifier asks, for each coin, whether it carries an inscription, an indexed protocol balance, a rare satoshi candidate, or a user lock. Two coins carry nothing and are placed in the spendable pool, which is what a plain payment may draw from. Two coins carry an artifact or a token balance and are placed in the protected pool, drawn with a hatched fill and labelled Protected. A fifth coin could not be checked because the rare satoshi service did not answer, and it is placed in the protected pool as well, because unknown is treated as unsafe rather than as safe. A plain send is drawn taking a single arrow from the spendable pool only. Spending a protected coin requires the flow built for that asset plus a named confirmation, drawn as a separate path.CLASSIFY BEFORE YOU SELECTYour coinsCheckedSorted into two poolsa1f2...:00.01200000 BTC, plaina1f2...:10.00330000 BTC, plain7c9b...:00.00000546 BTC, inscriptionbe31...:20.00000330 BTC, token4d70...:00.00051000 BTC, uncheckedDoes this coin carryan inscription?a token balance?a rare-sat candidate?a lock you set?If a check cannotfinish, the answeris treated as yes.Unknown is not safe.Spendablea1f2...:0a1f2...:1A plain payment may use these.Protected7c9b...:0be31...:24d70...:0Never selected to fund aplain payment.FROM SPENDABLESend 0.005 BTC to a friend.Nothing is asked about assets, becauseno asset can be reached from this pool.FROM PROTECTEDMove the inscription itself.Uses the flow built for that asset, andasks you to confirm by name first.WHY THIS EXISTSAn inscription lives inside an ordinary coin. A wallet that treats every coin as plain bitcoin canspend a collectible as pocket change. Holding those coins back is the point, not a bug. Frozen valuestill counts in your total balance; it just does not count as available.

Protected value still counts in your total balance. It does not count as available. That gap between the two numbers is the feature working, not a fault.

What puts a coin into the protected state

Section titled “What puts a coin into the protected state”

A coin is shown as Protected when it carries any of the following:

  • an inscription,
  • an indexed protocol balance,
  • a rare-satoshi candidate,
  • a lock you applied yourself.

And one more, which is the important one:

What that means in practice

Section titled “What that means in practice”
You seeWhy
Total balance higher than available balanceSome coins are protected. The difference is exactly the protected amount.
A payment says there are not enough fundsThe available pool is smaller than the amount plus fee, even though the total is larger.
More is protected than usual todayAn indexer may be lagging or unreachable, so coins that are normally clear are being held back.
A protected coin holds a very small amount, like 546 satoshisThat is normal. Asset-bearing outputs are usually near the dust limit, because the value is what is written on them, not what they hold.

Spending a protected coin on purpose

Section titled “Spending a protected coin on purpose”

You can. It is deliberately not on the default path.

Moving an artifact uses the flow built for that asset, not the plain send screen, and it asks you to confirm by name before the coin can be selected. Those flows sit behind protocol release gates, so whether they are available in your build depends on that build. See What this release authorizes.

If you set the lock yourself, you can remove it yourself. Locks you set are device settings, and they do not travel with your recovery phrase.

Where to see the list

Section titled “Where to see the list”

The Locked coins screen lists the coins currently being held back and why. It has no protocol gate, so it is present regardless of what your build authorizes. The Coin health screen shows the overall shape of your coin set, including how much is protected.

What this does not protect you from

Section titled “What this does not protect you from”
  • Signing a transaction that someone else built. If you approve a PSBT that spends a protected coin, it is spent. Classification informs the review screen; it does not veto your approval. See Review a PSBT.
  • Assets the wallet cannot recognise. Protection depends on knowing an asset is there. A protocol the wallet does not index cannot be classified, and a coin carrying it can look plain.
  • Another wallet using the same phrase. Protection is a Universe Wallet behaviour. Import the same phrase into a wallet without it and every coin becomes ordinary money again.
Section titled “Related”