Bitcoin Forum

Just happened across this article about Antpool offering to refund someone their over paid transaction
fees of $3,000,000.

https://unchainedcrypto.com/bitcoin-mining-firm-antpool-offers-refund-for-3-million-record-transfer-fee/


From the article its clear that the mining pool was able to automatically freeze the transaction, this is a
good news story, any abnormal transactions like this one are able to be flagged, massively ver bought fees
are able to be refunded and it proves that Antpool are not scammers, they appear to be doing the right thing,
This creates a good vibe and says a lot for the Bitcoin community in general.

Thought I would post here to share with everyone rather than the Mining Board.

The user had until yesterday to confirm "their identity"

I think I have come across this similar post on the forum, where the possibility of the original owner not being able to receive this money was being discussed as the transaction that was executed was done by some hackers who have made their way to the original owner's wallet.
 
So now there is also a higher possibility of the hackers signing in the message and making sure that the fund could also be refunded to the original wallet where it left, and if that's done, the hackers will still make away with the money just under the nose of the original owner.
 
If ownership has not yet been proven over the past few days and suggestions in respect to how just the original owners could be able to verify and claim ownership have been made,
 
I will suggest they either use an old address that has interacted with the address before for such verification, and if that's possible and ownership has been proven, then they can decide on which wallet they want the refund to be sent to, because returning to the original address is not safe at all.

It is their choice to refund the person who paid the excess in fees, if they keep it, it does not affect their reputation and it does not make them scammers. Miners confirm your tx and earn whatever tx fee you attach to the tx, you have to ensure you pay an appropriate fee, and not overpay, because the mining pool may not be kind enough to return it to you.

F2pool refunded Paxos 19.8 BTC after they overpaid in tx fees some months ago and now this case, i hope it does not set a precedent and when one mining pool decides not to refund someone for an overpayment in fees, they begin to cry 'scam', when it surely is not.

For me its really that a good gesture or simply being ethical on what on they have done on which giving up those money to its rightful owner just because getting paid with such huge amount for just the fees on pushing up a transaction is never been that right.So it would really be just that normal that they would really be looking forward on giving those amounts or fees back on which it is really just that safe to assume that these kind of incidents would really be always pertain about human error. We cant really be able to tell if they are really just that honest or what but since everything could really be seen on chain then if a certain
Miner or pool would be able to recieve out such huge fees then it would be normal that everyone on this world or crypto space would be aware of their name on which on the  time that they would be deciding
on not to give out those fees then it would really be creating that kind of buzz and would really be ending up on tainting up their reputation and would really be getting tons of negative impressions
towards them and this is something that they dont really like. So they would really be choosing instead on giving back those fees back rather than on trying to mess up their reputation.

yes if good antpool offered.. so good vibe, old news..
many topics talk about antpools offer many days ago


but the address that spent the 83btc was a hackers address where he then tried to act like someone(voitelgluk) that obtained that addresses wallet from another hacker and was advertising that he can sign it.. (trying to sell the wallet address to someone else for 10% of the 83btc) thus a double hack/scam

the victim didnt own the address that spent 83btc in fee's.. the victim was a few taints before that spend


the hacker . now trying to get 10% of 83btc by trying to sell the seed to someone who wants to claim antpools 83btc offer

It is generous action but it should be done like this.

There are some mistakenly expensive transaction fee made in history and some were refunded by mining pools and miners.

2.5 BTC fee (https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/4d45a14ee7320b97bafd550d60df1a1be524f3cfc8ca1ea6295279eeb7026aff)
50 BTC fee (https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/transactions/btc/d38bd67153d774a7dab80a055cb52571aa85f6cac8f35f936c4349ca308e6380)
Bitcoin Miner Repays Customer Who Accidentally Paid 2.5 Bitcoins Transaction Fee (https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-miner-repays-customer-who-accidentally-paid-2-5-bitcoins-transaction-fee/)
Someone paid $500,000 in transaction fees to move just $200 of bitcoin (https://www.theblock.co/post/250098/someone-paid-500000-in-transaction-fees-to-move-just-200-of-bitcoin).
Bitcoin Miner F2Pool Returns 19.8 BTC to Paxos After Overpaid Fee (https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/09/15/bitcoin-miner-f2pool-returns-198-btc-to-paxos-after-overpaid-fee/)

Two big mistakes with Ethereum blockchain too.
https://decrypt.co/82099/ethereum-miner-returns-erroneously-high-22-million-gas-fee-bitfinex-wallet
https://decrypt.co/31830/someone-just-made-a-2-6-million-mistake-on-ethereum

I thought that refunding process was automatic, extra coins would be sent again to the same input address/es, with fees deducted, but it seems that the mining pool verifies the owner of the address and may return the funds to a new address which brings us into this story


In this way, the refund process will require more time and effort.

This isn't a good vibe, it's ultimately harmful precedence for Bitcoin mining.  The pool operator is a custodian whose job is to distribute the block rewards to the workers, if I was mining with Antpool or F2pool, I would be furious that the earnings I worked for were given to someone else.

many people dont re-use addresses. and so putting funds back to the coin that spent it may mean coins are lost forever if the sender deleted old wallet keys.. so ensuring sender still has access to keys is a must these days..

als some spenders are not using their keys and instead sometimes is a CEX hot wallet which means the fund dont go to a user but to a hot wallet which may not know where these coins came from. thus ensuring whomever lost coins makes a valid claim ensure they know what they are getting back and why its being sent back


well antpool just needs to make a plea to the addresses that held the ~139btc value before the hack.. basically asking for a signed message from:
one with bc1q8qz322m5gu4faemeumzkxeqhd4r4439y42ps3r   99.24875663 BTC ( 3,847,366.97 USD )
one with bc1qd6nn3734nkxlktseawn27xp2cw4ruy2ecz9hk9   40.17625999 BTC ( 1,557,428.23 USD )

why by the 83btc fee could then be split 99:40  or more precisely 59btc:24btc respectively

OMG what a cluster 4uck that was, so it did end up being a scam related transaction.

I didnt see the other threads about this and I did actually search for that news.


and if you were sending Bitcoin to a different address legitimately with extraordinary
high fees as a mistake and the mining pool didnt flag it as being abnormal would you be
furious then?

I would be furious at myself, I wouldn't be furious at the pool for doing their job.