Bitcoin Miner Returns 19.8 BTC in Fees After Paxos Claims Payment Mistake

According to an X post, a cryptocurrency mining pool, F2Pool, has returned the mistakenly transferred transaction fee of 19.8 BTC made by Paxos, a Financial infrastructure firm.

It started on September 10, when a transaction fee of $510,000 was paid to a miner on block 807,057 for a transaction worth $2,000.

This caused debate among the crypto community as a regular estimated fee of $2 was meant to be charged on such transactions. 

Initially, the crypto community suspected it was a well-experienced Bitcoin user, given a history of sending and receiving more than 120,000 transactions.

Although, F2Pool co-founder Chun Wang said that users could claim overpaid fees within three days, or they would be redistributed to miners.

On September 13, as people contemplated the likelihood of what happened, Paxos took responsibility for the error after claiming that their server made the transaction.

The firm also assures its users that their funds are safe and that only the company’s funds were affected by the mistake. 

A Paxos spokesperson confirmed that they were behind the fee blunder.

“Paxos overpaid the BTC network fee on September 10, 2023,” the spokesperson said while adding:

“This was due to a bug on a single transfer, and it has been fixed. Paxos is in contact with the miner to recoup the funds.”

Paxos’s Funds Returned: Disagreement Over Timezone Sparked Debate on Bitcoin Transaction Fee Refund

As Paxos said in the statement, they have been in touch with Chun Wang, co-founder of F2Pool, the mining pool that mined the block containing the transaction.

According to Wang, there was a disagreement with Paxos over the timezone used when counting the days from when he gave his promise.

“I was annoyed and regretted agreeing to refund that 20 BTC. Especially when I saw the person claiming it kept saying EST instead of EDT/UTC. Last time a Zcash guy did that, I blocked his entire company.”

On September 14, he went on X to express his frustration and ask the crypto community for their opinions on what to do through a poll. 

“So what should I do,” the mining pool operator asked his followers on X.

Further adding to Chun’s dilemma was the heated discussion among the crypto community, each backed with solid reasons. 

However, the poll results supported that most people want Chun to distribute the funds among the miners as he has no obligation to return the funds.

27% of the people also advised that it should be returned to Paxos, while others believed the fee should be frozen or shared equally between the miners and Paxos.

The Blockchain data shared by the Bitcoin explorer Mempool shows that he devised the opinion shared by the crypto community as the explorer confirmed that the funds were sent to Paxos on September 15.

Bitcoin miners receive fees when they confirm transactions on the blockchain. Users can adjust prices to prioritize certain transactions. Should Paxos’s fee not be refunded, it becomes the highest transaction fee ever recorded on the Bitcoin network.