👀 Mystery Of $500K Transaction Fee Solved

Author

BitDegree Insider
September 14, 2023

GM Readers. Get ready for your daily dose of BitDegree insights 👀

Today’s selection:

  • 💰Solving The $500K Transaction Fee Mystery

  • 🧩️Thursday Quiz

  • 📰Bite-Sized News

  • 👌Selected Meme of The Day

LARGEST TRANSACTION FEE EVER

So, who paid $500,000 for a tiny Bitcoin transaction, making it to be the largest transaction fee ever?

Reminder:
On September 10, 2023, a mysterious transaction occurred: A fee of $510,000 was paid for a Bitcoin transaction of just 0.074 Bitcoin, which was worth only $200.

It later came to light that the company Paxos made this mistake.

We've covered this unusual incident not long ago. The fee ended up in the coffers of the mining pool F2Pool, whose administrators immediately signaled their willingness to return the money, urging the responsible party to act swiftly.

Yesterday, rumors swirled that PayPal, the payment service provider, might be the one behind this costly blunder. However, it was revealed that Paxos, a stablecoin issuer, was the organization at fault.

Paxos has since admitted the mistake, clarifying that the issue impacted only their corporate operations. They assured that their clients and end-users have not been affected, stating: "All customer funds are safe." The error was traced back to a bug affecting a single transfer, which has now been fixed.

But What About the Funds?

Wang Chun, co-founder of F2Pool, regretted his earlier decision to return the 20 Bitcoin ($510,000) to Paxos. He then turned to the online community for advice on what to do with the funds.

In a recent X post, Wang Chun noted that a Paxos representative confused EST with EDT when discussing the return of the Bitcoin. For clarity, the difference between these time zones is just one hour.

Wang Chun also mentioned a related incident from May 2021 when the BlockFi platform mistook Bitcoin for U.S. dollars. Consequently, a user ended up receiving around 700 Bitcoin instead of the intended 700 USD. At that time, Bitcoin's price hovered around $50,000 per coin, meaning the user unwittingly became $35 million richer—and even successfully withdrew the funds before BlockFi recognized its mistake.

The co-founder of F2Pool believes that this case is similar. He cautioned people to "steer clear" of those who can't differentiate between EDT and EST.

To gauge public opinion, he posted a poll with the following options:

At the moment of publishing, the most popular choice is distributing the funds among the miners.

What would you do in this situation?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

TL;DR: On September 10, 2023, a $510,000 fee was mistakenly paid for a $200 Bitcoin transaction by Paxos. Paxos admitted the error was due to a bug affecting a single transfer, ensuring customer funds' safety.

THURSDAY QUIZ

Today, we're excited to share an opportunity that we ourselves wouldn't mind participating in!

Yuga Labs, the studio behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, has launched a series of encrypted puzzles based on their Bitcoin collection, TwelveFold. Those who solve these puzzles stand a chance to win Bitcoin prizes.

TwelveFold is a collection of 300 generative images, created in February on the Ordinals protocol. Despite some criticism, their auction raised $16.5 million from initial sales.

Starting from September 5th, the studio is releasing one puzzle every week. The first person to solve each puzzle will be awarded 0.12 Bitcoin (~$3170).

For the final 13th week, the prize will be one of the TwelveFold inscriptions. On the secondary market, the floor price for these "digital artefacts" from the collection is 0.74 Bitcoin (~$19,500).

So, the next puzzle will go live on September 19th.

Just a note—those wishing to try their luck will need an Ordinals Bitcoin wallet, as all attempts will be recorded on the blockchain. Don't forget to fund your wallet for transaction fees. Fortunately, the fee should be relatively small, not $500,000 as some might fear based on previous news.

The correct solution to the most recent puzzle was found only after 5 hours, so everyone has a chance!

DYOR! If you want to hear more details from us on this, feel free to reply to our newsletter.

BITE-SIZED NEWS

Sounds interesting? Find more crypto news on our website: 

SELECTED MEME OF THE DAY

How did you like today's post?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Disclaimer: This newsletter is strictly educational. None of this information is intended to be financial advice. Always do your research and act responsibly with your profits.