Bitcoiner Pays $3.1 Million Transaction Fee; Analysts Debate Possible Factors

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A Bitcoin (BTC) user has reportedly paid $3.1 million in transaction fees to transfer 139.42 BTC sparking vast community reactions and opinions by on-chain analysts.

On-chain data on Nov 23 shows a Bitcoiner paid a shocking transfer fee of 83 BTC approximately $3.1 million, a figure widely regarded as one of the highest since the advent of cryptocurrencies.

The transfer consumed over 50% of the total transaction value as the recipient wallet shows it received only 55.77 BTC. Many around crypto circles have pointed at human error to be a likely cause of the incidents. 

Several on-chain developers have scrutinised the replace-by-fee (RBF) policy which allows users to replace unconfirmed transactions in the mempool with another transaction that pays more to be cleared faster. 

Data shows that the last RBF replacement increased the transaction fee by 12.5 BTC, adding 20% to the already high figure.

Crypto developer, Mononaut argued on X (formerly Twitter) that the user may not have known that RBF orders cannot be cancelled in its policy and maybe had the expectations to do so.

Antpool mining gets reward 

Antpool got the mining reward for the transaction after the completion of 818087. It was also revealed that the account was created a few minutes before the transfer.

The mining pool which is owned by Bitmain has not made an official statement on the situation. Lately, Antpool and Foundry USA have mined the majority of Bitcoin blocks.

This is not the first time a mining pool has recorded such high transaction fees however this is the largest amount paid if converted. A transaction fee of 291 BTC in 2016 stands as the highest recorded. 

In September, Paxos paid a $500,000 transfer fee to move $2000 worth of assets. The company immediately released a statement confirming the payment adding that all user funds were safe and clarified that PayPal was not responsible as speculated by some users.

Days later, on-chain data shows that the amount was refunded to the blockchain infrastructure firm after the mistake l. Although the decision was reached by F2Pool, the Bitcoin miner asked the community what they would have done in his shoes and many jokingly suggested distributing the money to all users. 

pic.twitter.com/cN9oVYcvpq

— mononaut (@mononautical) September 10, 2023

Assets have been lost through mistakes in the past but in most cases, the mining pool helps the user recover the funds. In 2019, Sparkpool, an Ethereum mining pool, assisted a user in getting back 50% of funds lost due to a $400,000 transaction fee. 

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