Someone Just Paid $3,140,000 in Bitcoin Fees for a Single BTC Transaction: On-Chain Data

A Bitcoin address was spotted paying a whopping $3.14 million in fees for a single BTC transaction, according to on-chain data.

First reported by blockchain tracking firm Lookonchain, the address starting with “bc1qn” paid over 83 BTC to miners while sending coins to another entity beginning with “bc1qyf.”

“Wallet ‘bc1qn’ paid a transaction fee of 83.65 BTC ($3.14M) when transferring 139.42 BTC( $5.23M) to wallet ‘bc1qyf.’ “

According to Bitcoin blockchain explorer Mempool.Space, the rewards on block 818087 were distributed to Ant Pool, which is the world’s largest BTC mining pool and is operated by Bitmain.

The fee, paid by a so far unknown user, is believed to be the largest ever in terms of dollar value, according to pseudonymous on-chain analyst Mononaut.

It’s unclear why the user presumably accidentally paid such a high fee for transferring coins, but software bugs have been known to lead users to pay much higher fees than necessary.

In September of this year, crypto firm Paxos accidentally paid over half a million dollars in fees on behalf of PayPal to a miner on a small transfer. Luckily, Paxos was able to get in touch with the miner, who agreed to send the BTC back to the original address out of good faith.

So far, no one has reached out to AntPool regarding the large transaction fee.

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