An unusual transaction on the Bitcoin network has caught the attention of the cryptocurrency community, as a user accidentally paid a staggering $3.1 million in transaction fees for sending $2.1 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC). This costly error was confirmed when block #818,087 was mined by AntPool, revealing that the sender overpaid by nearly 120,000 times the standard handling charge.
The mishap occurred on Wednesday when wallet "bc1qn…ekrnl," with a starting balance of 139 BTC, intended to transfer 55 BTC to another wallet "bc1qy…m36t4." However, instead of a typical transaction fee, an enormous sum of 83 BTC (approximately $3.13 million) was included as the fee. This blunder resulted in the transaction fees making up almost 90% of the total fees collected in that block, which amounted to 85.216 BTC, dwarfing the standard mining subsidy of 6.25 BTC.
This incident underscores the importance of meticulous verification before sending transactions on the Bitcoin network. Fees are set by senders as incentives for miners to prioritize their transactions. Once a transaction is confirmed, these fees become non-refundable, making it crucial for users to double-check the details to avoid such expensive mistakes.
In comparison to this recent error, there was an earlier incident involving Paxos, which also overpaid by sending a 20 BTC handling fee on a minor transfer. However, Paxos was compensated after F2Pool confirmed their claim and reimbursed the excess amount.
The recent event has raised awareness among Bitcoin users about the potential risks associated with transaction fee settings. It also highlights how irreversible blockchain transactions are once they have been added to the ledger, as evidenced by a failed fork attempt and subsequent creation of an exact replica block at this juncture, which was validated and included in the blockchain despite the error.
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