A user accidentally paid $3.1 million in a fee to move 139 BTC, setting a record for the most expensive transaction fee paid in U.S. dollars for a single transaction in Bitcoin’s 14-year history.
Over $3M For Transaction Fees
A Bitcoin sender has just dazzled the crypto world by parting ways with a jaw-dropping 83.7BTC.
The wallet that made the payment, with the tag “bc1qyf…”, was set up earlier today, making three BTC transactions before a fourth incurred the astronomical fee.
According to blockchain data, the transaction occurred at block height 818087. The sender planned to send 139.42 BTC worth approximately $5.2 million, but a staggering 83.7 BTC was devoured by transaction fees, leaving the destination address with just 55.78 BTC — valued at circa $2 million at the current market prices.
Transactions with higher fees attached are more likely to be cleared faster by miners. Average transaction fees are typically around $1 or $3 but have soared to $10.50 at press time with Bitcoin Ordinals back in vogue.
Members of the Crypto Twitter community suggested that the sender might have selected the high transaction fee, but the replace-by-fee (RBF) node policy and the sender’s unfamiliarity also seem to have contributed to the absurdly high transaction fee. RBF allows users to replace an unconfirmed transaction in the mempool with a different transaction that pays a higher fee to get it processed faster.
A mempool developer going by the online alias mononautical on the X platform observed that the Bitcoin sender likely wasn’t aware that RBF orders could not be aborted. The said originator may have relentlessly replaced the fees in an attempt to undo it. The RBF history shows that the last replacement raised the fee by an extra 20%, adding 12.5 BTC in fees.
Can The Overpaid 83.7 BTC Be Recovered?
This kind of exorbitant transaction fee is rare but not uncommon, given the Bitcoin network lacks a specific quote for the fee that users should pay when conducting transactions.
In September, crypto infrastructure provider Paxos overpaid $500,000 in fees to move $2,000 worth of Bitcoin, although Bitcoin mining pool F2Pool agreed to return the extra funds.
Bitmain-owned Antpool confirmed the block that contained today’s transaction. The mining pool has not released a statement regarding the overpaid fee. It remains unclear whether Antpool would be willing to reimburse the funds to the luckless Bitcoiner.
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