In a recent development, AntPool, a prominent Bitcoin mining pool, made an announcement regarding a record-breaking transaction and subsequent actions to rectify a significant fee issue. The incident occurred last week in block 818087 when an individual attempted to transfer 139.42 BTC, valued at around $5.1 million at the time. However, an astronomical transaction fee of 83.64 BTC was inadvertently attached to the transfer, leaving the intended recipient with a considerably reduced 55.77 BTC, valued at approximately $2 million.
AntPool’s risk control system intervened by freezing the transaction fee during the packaging process. To address the issue, AntPool has urged the sender to undertake a verification process before December 10. The sender is requested to use a signing tool—either Electrum or Bitcoin Core—and employ the private key of the sending address to sign the message “AntPool.” This signed text should then be forwarded to AntPool’s support email address for further assistance.
This incident isn’t isolated, as notable cases of oversized Bitcoin transaction fees being refunded have emerged recently. In a similar occurrence in September, F2Pool, another Bitcoin mining pool, agreed to refund a $500,000 transaction fee mistakenly paid by crypto firm Paxos for processing a transaction worth just $2,000.
The surge in Bitcoin transaction fees has garnered attention, especially considering the exponential increase in fees over the past month. Data from Ycharts reveals a staggering rise, with the average transaction fee skyrocketing from $1.15 at the end of October to $6.7 currently—a more than five-fold escalation.
AntPool’s initiative to freeze the transaction fee temporarily and its call for verification by the sender highlights the growing concerns around fee accuracy in Bitcoin transactions amidst the escalating fee landscape.
Source: Decrypt
