A Bitcoin (BTC/USD) user significantly overpaid a transaction fee on Sunday, spending an unprecedented 19 BTC, equivalent to approximately $509,563. This event stands out as the average Bitcoin transaction fee currently hovers around $1.410.
The user in question transferred a mere 0.074 BTC, valued at less than $2,000 on September 10. The transaction fee paid was more than 480,000 times the average transaction cost of $2.176 at the time, marking it as the highest ever recorded on the Bitcoin network.
Jameson Lopp, a notable figure in the cryptocurrency community and co-founder of CasaHODL, analyzed the incident and suggested that this could be due to a software error from an exchange or payment processor address. Lopp pointed out that the address involved in this transaction appears to be a withdraw-only hot wallet tied to an enterprise.
"It looks like it only receives deposits from one address to top up its balance every now and then. Spending pattern is one long peel chain! They’ve received 60,000+ transactions and sent 60,000+ transactions from the same address (bad practice) and likely calculated their change output incorrectly," Lopp explained.
Another cryptocurrency enthusiast, Seth Michael Steele, proposed that it may have been a user-end mistake. He emphasized the importance of block space's value to the network's long-term well-being as it increases miner compensation and security during periods of high transaction demand.
Chun Wang, co-founder of F2Pool, mentioned that the overpaid fees will be temporarily held. The user responsible has a three-day window to claim these fees. If unclaimed within this period, miners will redistribute these funds, aiming for a fair and equitable resolution.
Despite this significant miscalculation leading to an inflated transaction fee, it appears that the user has yet to notice the mistake as transactions continue to be sent from the wallet. The recent fee of 19 BTC paid by the Bitcoin user surpasses any previously observed outliers, even during the 2017 cryptocurrency boom when fees surged to nearly $60.
At the time of reporting, BTC was trading at $25,737, down 0.42% in the last 24 hours.
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