Coin control

Intended reader: someone who wants to decide which coins fund a transaction. Goal: control over selection, or a clear understanding of where you do not have it. Prerequisites: an unlocked wallet. Safety: selecting the wrong coin is how an artifact gets spent. The protection described in Protected outputs is what stops that on the default path.

Where manual selection exists, and where it does not

In Universe Wallet 1.7.5.8, manual coin selection is offered inside the PSBT approval flow, where a request lets you choose which of your coins fund it. There is no standalone coin control screen that lets you pick inputs for an ordinary send before you build it. If you were expecting a general purpose coin picker on the send screen, it is not there.

What is there

Locked coins

A screen listing the coins currently held back from ordinary payments, and why each one is held. It has no protocol gate, so it is present regardless of what your build authorizes. This is the screen to open when your available balance is lower than your total and you want to know which coins account for the difference.

Coin health

An overview of the shape of your coin set: how many coins you hold, how they are distributed, and how much is protected. Useful before a large payment, because a wallet made of many small coins produces large, expensive transactions.

Manual selection during PSBT approval

When a signature request allows it, the approval screen offers a selector for which of your coins fund the transaction. Protected coins are excluded from that selector unless you are in a flow built for moving that asset.

Consolidation

A consolidation screen exists, combining many small coins into fewer larger ones. It sits behind the bitcoin/send gate, so its availability depends on your build.

Why you would consolidate

Fees follow transaction size, and size follows the number of inputs. A wallet holding fifty small coins pays much more to make a payment than a wallet holding three large ones.

Consolidating during a quiet, low-fee period is cheaper than being forced to consolidate during a busy one.

Never consolidate blindly

Consolidation touches many coins at once, which is exactly the operation that can sweep an asset-bearing output into a payment if protection is not doing its job. Read the input list on the review screen before approving a consolidation, and confirm no protected coin appears in it.

Locking a coin yourself

You can mark a coin as locked, which keeps it out of ordinary payments the same way an asset-bearing coin is kept out. Locks are device settings: they do not travel with your recovery phrase, and a restore will not bring them back.

Expected result

• You can see which coins are held back and why.
• Where a flow offers selection, you choose which coins it uses.
• Consolidation, where available, reduces the number of coins you hold.

Common failures

What you see	What it means
No coin picker on the send screen	Correct for this build. Selection is offered in the PSBT approval flow, not the send flow.
A coin you want to spend is not selectable	It is protected. See Protected outputs.
Consolidation says it is not available in this build	The bitcoin/send gate is not authorized in your release

Related

• Protected outputs
• Inputs, outputs, fees, change
• Review a PSBT