On September 10, someone paid a 19.82 BTC transaction fee. However, on September 13, it was revealed that Paxos had made a mistake, prompting the F2Pool mining pool to return the fee. Let's take a closer look at the situation.
A brief overview
On September 10, an odd transaction occurred involving the transfer of 0.074 BTC ($1,902) along with the fee of 19.82 BTC ($509,000). Such a fee set a record in dollar terms.
The representative of the mining pool that received this fee stated that they were willing to refund it if the sender contacted them within a 3-day window.
Who paid the 19.82 BTC?
On September 13, Bitcoin Magazine, citing an investigation by X user (formerly Twitter) @mononautical, reported that the transfer was made by PayPal.
Later that day, a PayPal spokesperson clarified that the error was not on their end but was attributed to their "infrastructure partner, Paxos". A Paxos spokesperson confirmed this, according to The Block. He additionally characterised it as a one-time impact that "only impacted Paxos corporate operations. Paxos clients and end users have not been affected and all customer funds are safe."
By the way, PayPal had recently launched its own stablecoin, PYUSD, in partnership with Paxos. Read more about it in our article: Challenges with PayPal's Stablecoin: 3 Key Concerns.
F2Poolβs Bitcoin refund
On September 15, the F2Pool mining pool announced that it had refunded the Bitcoins to Paxos. Here is that transaction.
Notably, on September 14, a representative of the mining pool expressed regret over the decision to return the Bitcoins. He even polled the audience on what should have been done. As a result, some community members believed that distributing the fee among the miners would have been a fairer course of action.
Be careful when sending your Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies!
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