coinfomania.com
One of the reasons Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, in general, have recorded mass adoption is their cheap transaction costs, as users can send large amounts of funds for a paltry fee.
However, in some rare cases, things go bizarre for most users, as they pay high fees to send a lower amount of funds.
Data on on-chain data platform Blockstream show that a bitcoin user recently paid an outrageous amount of fees worth 3.49 BTC ($79,500) to move on-chain just 0.00005 BTC ($1.14).
The transaction, which was confirmed on December 19, 2020, at 15:15 GMT, saw the user pay 459,315 satoshis (sats) per byte, which is higher than the average fee of 102 sats needed for fast transaction confirmation. The transaction was included in block 662052.
Human Error
The outrageous fee paid in the recent transactions is due to human error and not due to any bug found on the blockchain network. BTC users are mostly advised to confirm the transaction details before going through it to eliminate any form of error.
With such an enormous amount paid in fee, there is a tendency that the user mistook the transaction fee for the amount they wanted to move. Meanwhile, Coinfomania reported that an Ether (ETH) user paid 10,668.73185 ETH ($2.6 million) in fees to move 0.55 ETH ($133).
Way Forward
At the moment, there is very little the bitcoin user can do to recover a certain amount of the fees. One of the solutions includes contacting the miner that facilitated the transaction, asking for a refund. The user will be prompted to prove ownership of the address by signing a message on the blockchain.
The current mistake though is tricky since the miner of the transaction is not a popular mining pool. Blockchain.com data tags the miner as ‘unknown’ with the only link being an address to a bitcoin address.
In such a situation, it is up to the miner who computed the transaction to find out and then decides whether or not to send the BTC back to the user.
Bitcoin Fees Still Cheaper Amid Rally
Despite bitcoin reaching an all-time high (ATH), fees on the network have been relatively cheaper, a feat that has continued to draw comparisons between the industry and the traditional financial system.
According to data on YCharts, the current average bitcoin transaction fee is $6.12, down from $8.065 yesterday.
Although BTC users have paid up to $12 since the beginning of the month, it is nothing compared to its ATH of nearly $60 recorded in 2017.
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