- A user has erroneously paid an exorbitant fee for a single Bitcoin transaction.
- An analyst has offered insight into the potential identity of the user.
- While blockchain transactions are typically irreversible, F2Pool has offered a path to recovery for the entity.
The complexity of cryptocurrency technology remains a significant barrier to its adoption. In the latest reminder of this problem, someone has paid over $500k in fees for a single Bitcoin (BTC) transaction.
A Costly Error
Data from mempool.space has revealed someone paid 19.8 BTC (worth approximately $510,750) for a single transaction, over 481,000 times the average fee and the highest-ever fee in USD for a single Bitcoin transaction. Blockchair showed that the jaw-dropping fee was paid to send out 0.074 BTC (worth about $1,916) at around 5:10 pm UTC on Sunday, September 10.
Casa CTO Jameson Lopp, analyzing the transaction, suggested that the wallet address likely belonged to an exchange or payment processor.
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"They've received 60,000+ txns and sent 60,000+ txns from the same address (bad practice) and likely calculated their change output incorrectly," Lopp added.
While blockchain transactions are typically irreversible, all hope may not be lost for the unfortunate party.
F2Pool Offers Path to Recovery
The sizable fee is currently in the custody of F2Pool, a prominent Bitcoin mining pool that mined the transaction block. On Monday, September 11, F2Pool co-founder Chun Wang revealed that the fees would not be distributed to miners for another three days in hopes that the affected party could claim the coins.
Interestingly, Casa’s Jameson Lopp speculated that the entity did not appear to have noticed the error. “Looks like they haven’t noticed; they still have a ton of funds in the wallet, and it’s still sending transactions,” he asserted.
On the Flipside
- The entity in question remains unknown.
Why This Matters
The recent incident is a reminder of the need to exercise caution while conducting crypto transactions. While there is a potential for recovery in this instance, most people will not be so lucky.
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Learn more about another unfortunate situation that led to the loss of 8000 BTC:
£164M Bitcoin Lost in Landfill Sparks Lawsuit Against Council
Stay up to date with the action in the FTX lawsuit against LayerZero Labs:
LayerZero Labs CEO Slams FTX Suit as Effort to Chase Legal Fees
