User Pays $89,000 for $2,200 Ethereum Transfer

An unidentified user likely paid 34 ETH (~$89,239) in gas fees by mistake for transferring 0.88 ETH worth ~$2,262. This was noted by on-chain analyst DeFiac.

Someone just burned ~$90k on tx fee for a simple eth transfer. pic.twitter.com/R9beCnNZv1

— DeFiac (@TheDEFIac) August 11, 2024

According to YCharts, the average transaction fee on the Ethereum network fell to $0.52 on August 10, the lowest since January.

Data from Ethereum Gas Tracker indicates that at the time of writing, the network fee for the most expensive transaction — an NFT sale — is $6.14 for high priority.

Occasionally, the industry records transactions with anomalously high fees.

In September 2023, a blockchain transaction of 0.074 BTC incurred a fee of $510,750.

Media identified the infrastructure company Paxos as responsible for the transaction. The firm described the overpayment as a one-time error. The mining pool F2Pool returned 19.82 BTC after necessary checks.

In November, a user paid a fee of 83.65 BTC ($3.1 million) for transferring 55.77 BTC ($2.1 million), setting a new record for miner rewards in dollar terms for transaction confirmation.

The sender, known as 83_5BTC, claimed to be a victim of a hacking attack.

The AntPool expressed willingness to return the record fee upon user identity verification.

In January 2024, an unknown individual paid 4.03 BTC ($173,148) for a single Bitcoin transaction of 2.9 BTC.

Some commentators suspect such operations may involve money laundering. Similar suspicions have arisen in this case.

Money laundering?

— . (@Broswar1) August 11, 2024

In April, a user spent $17,500 on a transaction of 1.34 BTC (~$87,000 at the time).