Blockstream is highlighting manual coin selection across its wallet applications, giving users direct control over which unspent transaction outputs are included when making Bitcoin payments. According to the official Blockstream App announcement, coin control is now available across the project’s mobile and desktop software, extending a feature that had already reached individual platform releases during recent months.
The functionality lets users replace the wallet’s automatic input selection with a manually chosen set of UTXOs. Each UTXO represents a specific amount received in an earlier transaction, and choosing which ones to spend determines which pieces of a wallet’s on-chain history become linked in the new transaction. Blockstream’s release records show Android support beginning with version 5.6.0 and iOS support with version 5.7.0, while desktop already supported manual selection before its September redesign.
It's been a long time coming. Coin selection is now in the Blockstream app on iOS, Android and desktop.
Choose exactly which coins each payment spends. Keep coins from different sources apart, combine small ones when fees are low, and decide what each transaction reveals. pic.twitter.com/xbdAgR2EMR
— The Blockstream App (@BlockstreamApp) October 26, 2026
Coin Control Adds Privacy and Fee Options
The primary privacy benefit comes from avoiding unnecessary consolidation. Bitcoin’s common-input ownership heuristic can lead observers to infer that multiple inputs spent together are controlled by the same entity. Keeping UTXOs from unrelated sources separate can reduce the amount of additional wallet information exposed through a single payment, although coin control does not make transactions anonymous or prevent every form of blockchain clustering.
That distinction becomes especially relevant for wallets receiving Bitcoin through different contexts, such as exchanges, peer-to-peer payments or business activity. Similar UTXO-management questions also appear in longer-term Bitcoin proposals such as BIP-361’s treatment of legacy outputs. Bitcoin wallets manage individually spendable outputs rather than a single account balance, making UTXO selection part of both transaction construction and operational privacy.
Manual selection can also affect fees because every additional input increases transaction data. Spending one sufficiently large UTXO can be cheaper than combining several smaller ones, while manually choosing many inputs can have the opposite effect and raise the fee. Coin control therefore provides a fee-management tool rather than an automatic fee-reduction mechanism.
Blockstream’s interface also identifies dust outputs, defined in its documentation as coins below 1,092 satoshis whose spending cost can exceed their value under the app’s criteria. Users can leave unwanted dust unselected instead of combining it with other funds, which can also avoid linking externally sent tracking dust with unrelated wallet holdings.
Wallet-Level Controls Expand Beyond Key Security
The feature adds transaction-level control without changing Bitcoin consensus or the security of the user’s private keys. Recent Bitcoin Core PSBT signing changes similarly illustrate how wallet software can materially affect transaction authorization even when the underlying Bitcoin protocol remains unchanged. Coin selection operates one layer earlier by determining which UTXOs the wallet proposes to spend.
That broader wallet-security boundary also matters when users retain direct custody. Incidents such as the recent cross-chain wallet drain involving Frogman demonstrate that effective control over signing remains separate from blockchain consensus security. Coin control does not protect against compromised keys or malicious signing software, but it gives legitimate wallet owners more control over the transaction graph they create.
Current Blockstream documentation limits manual selection to supported Bitcoin and Liquid Bitcoin accounts rather than Lightning, AMP accounts or arbitrary Liquid assets. The feature should therefore be understood as granular UTXO management for compatible on-chain accounts, not a universal transaction-selection layer across every asset and payment mode in the app.
For Blockstream App users, the practical change is greater visibility and control over exactly which coins fund each payment. The feature brings a long-standing advanced-wallet capability into Blockstream’s current mobile and desktop interfaces while leaving users responsible for balancing privacy, transaction size and fee efficiency when making manual selections.