A clumsy crypto user accidentally paid a huge transaction fee, shattering digital records in the process.

A user on X (formerly Twitter) named "83_5BTC" claimed to be the victim of the $3 million fee, stating that their wallet was hacked. After creating a new cold wallet and transferring 139 BTC to it, the funds were immediately transferred out. While the user provided a signed message to prove ownership, it is unsure whether the attacker signed it using the compromised wallet.

As per Mononaut, an anonymous developer, the hack's probable cause was a low-entropy wallet susceptible to attacks. The speculation is that replace-by-fee (RBF) was employed to swiftly boost the transaction fee for expedited processing. Mononaut suggests that multiple attackers might have vied to pilfer the funds, leading to the elevated fee.

AntPool, a #Bitcoin mining pool, has committed to refunding the unprecedented $3 million transaction fee it mined last week. However, the refund is contingent upon verifying the owner's identity. Temporarily frozen by the pool's risk control system, AntPool has instructed the original owner to confirm their identity before December 10, 2023, using a signing tool such as Electrum or Bitcoin Core and sending the signed text to the provided support email address.

Last week's transaction established a new milestone, marking the highest fee in U.S. dollars for a single Bitcoin transaction. The user, aiming to transfer 55.77 $BTC ($2.1 million), inadvertently paid a fee of 83.65 $BTC ($3.1 million). AntPool mined this transaction in block 818,087, and their public commentary on the matter was absent until now.A clumsy crypto user accidentally paid a huge transaction fee and shatter digital records in the process