The most expensive Bitcoin transaction in history took place yesterday when, inadvertently, a user paid a transaction fee of $3.15 million to transfer 55.7 Bitcoins. This error far surpasses the previous record set by Paxos 2 months ago. How did this mistake, which benefited Antpool, come about?
$3.1 million, the price of the most expensive Bitcoin transaction to date
Just over 2 months ago, Paxos achieved the unfortunate record of the most expensive Bitcoin transaction in history, the crypto company having been forced to pay $500,000 in fees for a measly 0.074 BTC transaction.
An error later attributed to transaction automation software that was fortunately repaired, with miner F2Pool (who mined the block in question) agreeing to return the unintentionally paid fees to Paxos.
This transaction was therefore the most expensive ever paid in the history of Bitcoin… until yesterday, just 2 and a half months later. Indeed, a wallet freshly fed with Bitcoin and apparently belonging to a whale, had the misfortune to pay $3.15 million in BTC fees to transfer 55.7 Bitcoins, or around $2.1 million.
Screenshot of the offending Bitcoin transaction
The destination address is also relatively young, with a first transaction observable on October 17.
This time, it was the AntPool mining pool that reaped the rewards of this unfortunate error: a total of 85.21 BTC in addition to the usual fixed reward of 6.25 BTC. As a result, block 818087 now holds the record for the most expensive block in history, having dethroned the one involving Paxos.
Data relating to Bitcoin block 818087 mined by AntPool
The user, whose identity we don’t yet know, ended up receiving only 55.78 Bitcoins out of the initial 139.42. It remains to be seen whether Antpool, which has not yet communicated the news, will be as lenient as F2Pool and refund the unfortunate user.
According to mononaut, a developer at mempool, the user concerned also attempted to replace the transaction fee he had mistakenly set via the Replace-by-Fee (RBF) function, which led him to add 12.54 BTC to the original fee while trying to repair his blunder.
FullRBF is a great feature when you aren’t sure if you set the fee high enough first time around. pic.twitter.com/DKt88XFNf8
– mononaut (tx/acc) (@mononautical) November 23, 2023
Please note that the record transaction fees are recorded in dollars. In pure Bitcoin terms, the most expensive transaction in history dates back to 2016, when a user spent 291 BTC to settle his fee.
