In what appears to be a massive software glitch, a Bitcoin user paid an astounding $500,000 transaction fee to send just $200 worth of BTC over the weekend.
The transaction occurred on September 10 at 5:10 PM UTC and originated from a highly active BTC address that has sent and received over 120,000 transactions in its history. According to mempool.space, the user paid close to 20 BTC – around $500,000 at current prices – in fees, overpaying by a staggering 481,299x the typical fee amount.
This immediately prompted speculation within the Bitcoin community about the reason behind such an egregious overpayment. Some theorized it could be related to money laundering, but most deemed that unlikely to benefit any party involved.
The most plausible explanation came from Casa CTO Jameson Lopp, who posited the transaction likely came from a faulty automated payment system. “They’ve received 60,000+ txns and sent 60,000+ txns from the same address (bad practice) and likely calculated their change output incorrectly,” he wrote on Twitter.
Lopp believes the sender may not have even realized their mistake yet. The mining pool F2Pool collected the fee and says they will hold it for 3 days before distributing it to miners if left unclaimed.
While an odd event, the transaction highlights the transparency of Bitcoin’s blockchain and the sometimes unpredictable consequences of automation. The user likely has sufficient funds to continue normal payments until the source of the glitch is identified and fixed.
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