Bitcoin Miner AntPool to Refund Record $3M BTC Transaction Fee

Bitcoin miner AntPool will refund a $3 million transactional fee that it processed last week after a likely user error led to the highest-ever fee paid for a transfer on the Bitcoin network.

“On November 23rd, some users submitted 83 BTC as a gas fee,” AntPool said in a Thursday announcement. “The risk control system of ANTPOOL temporarily froze the fee when packaging the transaction.”

Miners are entities that utilize massive computing resources to process transactions on blockchains such as Bitcoin, receiving a predetermined reward each time they successfully mine a “block.”

Miners are not obligated to return fees to users but may choose to do so when the amounts are unusually large.

AntPool said it would verify the identity of the sender if they sign an on-chain message via another bitcoin transaction using the same message – which will prove ownership.

Last Thursday, AntPool received the standard 6.25 bitcoin (BTC) as well as 85.2163 BTC in fees for all transactions included in that erroneous transaction, on-chain data shows. The sender's wallet was set up just minutes before the transfer, and the recipient received only 55.78 BTC of the original 139.42 BTC that was sent.