AntPool to Refund Transaction Fee of 83 Bitcoin (BTC)

The cryptocurrency mining platform AntPool recently announced that it will be refunding a transaction fee of 83 Bitcoin (BTC) to an affected user. The incident occurred on November 23, when a Bitcoin user was charged a transaction fee of 83 BTC, equivalent to around $3.1 million, for a transfer of 139 BTC.

AntPool explained that its risk control system temporarily froze the fee during the transaction’s packaging. As a result, the affected user will need to verify their identity by submitting their details to AntPool before December 10, 00:00 (UTC+8). To do this, the user must prepare a signing tool such as Electrum or Bitcoin Core and use a private key from a wallet address provided by AntPool to sign the message with the code “AntPool.”

This incident is not the first time such an exorbitant transaction fee has occurred. In September, Paxos, a stablecoin issuer, confirmed that it paid a Bitcoin transaction fee worth $500,000 to move just $2,000 worth of BTC. Following this incident, the Bitcoin miner who received the fee sought advice from their social media followers. The majority voted to distribute the funds among the Bitcoin miner community, but the miner ultimately returned the funds to Paxos.

Bitcoin recently celebrated the 11th anniversary of its first halving, which saw its price rise from $12 to its current range of around $37,000. As the cryptocurrency industry continues to evolve, incidents like these highlight the need for robust risk control systems and measures to prevent such high transaction fees.

Sources:

• AntPool to refund $3.1M Bitcoin transaction fee after user voices support for miners
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