A Costly Mistake: Paying a High Fee in Bitcoin Transaction
An incident has come to light where a bitcoin user unintentionally paid a fee of 83.65 BTC, amounting to a costly mistake of $3.1 million, in a single transaction. This blunder occurred in block 818,087, mined by Antpool, marking the highest fee ever recorded on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Record-Breaking Fee in Block 818,087
Block 818,087 stands out in Bitcoin’s ledger for recording the largest fee for a single transaction in its history. This block included around 4,179 transactions. In addition to the standard reward of 6.25 newly created BTC, Antpool earned an additional 85.216 BTC in fees from this block.
An Extraordinary Transaction Fee
The extraordinary transaction fee amounted to 83.65 BTC, transferring 55.77 BTC valued at approximately $2 million based on current exchange rates. This incident surpasses the previous record of an excessive fee of about 19.8 BTC that was paid.
A Previous Record and a Gesture of Goodwill
The previous record was set in block 807,057, mined by F2pool, which earned 20.0127 BTC in total fees from the block. The 19.8 BTC transfer was later identified as a transaction by Paxos. F2pool chose to refund the company as a gesture of goodwill, showing that miners have the discretion to reimburse addresses in cases of apparent errors.
Hot Take: A Costly Lesson Learned
This incident serves as a cautionary tale for bitcoin users to double-check their transactions and ensure they enter the correct fee amount. Mistakes like these can result in significant financial losses. It also highlights the discretion miners have in refunding fees in cases of errors, demonstrating their role as custodians of the blockchain network.
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