Antpool to Refund User Who Paid $3 Million in Bitcoin Transaction Fee

• Antpool, after announcing its intention to refund the user who mistakenly paid an 83 Bitcoin (BTC) transaction fee, shared these steps days later.
• On November 23, the crypto ecosystem was shaken by news that a user spent approximately $3.1 million in BTC transaction fees.
• Initially, analysts pointed out the fee replacement feature that allows transactions in the memory pool to be replaced with another transaction for a higher fee.

Antpool announced that it would refund the user who mistakenly paid over $3 million in transaction fees.

Antpool to Refund User for Transaction Fee

Antpool, after announcing its intention to refund the user who mistakenly paid an 83 Bitcoin (BTC) transaction fee, shared these steps days later. Blockchain security firm PeckShield shared an update on Antpool’s 83 BTC transaction fee that caused various reactions among the crypto communities on Twitter.

The mining pool stated that it would refund the fee by asking the user to contact them and fulfill specific requirements to determine the ownership of the assets.

“Dear users, on November 23, some users sent 83 BTC as a transaction fee. Antpool’s risk control system temporarily froze the fee while packaging the transaction. Please contact us (UTC+8) before December 10, 2023, and verify your identity as shown below before reaching us. After the verification process, Antpool will refund the fee.”

According to the update, the steps to be followed include preparing a signature tool that could be Bitcoin Core or Electrum, then having the affected user sign a message as “Antpool” using the wallet’s private key, and finally, submitting the signed text to customer support.

On November 23, the crypto ecosystem was shaken by news that a user spent approximately $3.1 million in BTC transaction fees. The user paid 83 BTC as a transaction fee while making a transfer of 139 BTC, leaving 55.77 BTC for the recipient.

Antpool mined a specific block and has now provided new information about the refund process. The community and experts shared their opinions on the issue causing one of the highest transaction fees.

Initially, analysts pointed out the fee replacement feature that allows transactions in the memory pool to be replaced with another transaction for a higher fee. Developer Mononaut mentioned that the affected person might not have known that the orders cannot be canceled and might have made these transactions in the hope of canceling them.

Antpool Follows Suit

When such errors occur, mining pools usually refund users if possible, but in some cases, users can only recover 50% of the assets. In September, Paxos paid a $500,000 transaction fee to transfer $2,000 in assets.

A few days later, the miner who received the fee announced that the assets would be returned to the company, but many users joked that the assets should be shared among the community. One user claimed to be the victim of the 83 BTC transaction fee, stating that the expensive gas fee was the result of a hack.

“I was the one who paid the high fee in BTC. I created a new cold wallet, transferred 139 BTC to it, and immediately transferred it to another wallet. I can imagine someone running a script on that wallet and the script calculating a weird fee.