Think twice before pressing send.

[Captain-Cryptory]

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[1714329246]

1714329246

[1714329246]

1714329246

[Filicius]

WOW this is so unfortunate for him!!

I feel sorry for that guy, but it is old news, unfortunately, as from time to time this very mistake repeats over and over again.

I always check the mempool and transaction fees, and decide correspondingly, is such a newbie mistake!! and we keep seeing people with big money in Bitcoin who still fall in these uninformed behavior.

[NeuroticFish]

"Think twice before finalizing transaction by pressing send"

This is always important and it's not only the amounts have to be checked, but also the addresses.
Also if one is not familiar/comfortable with certain wallet he's using, better seek for wallets that support Testnet and play with it for a little time until he understands what he's doing. Then go on and use that wallet.
(Nowadays also spending some time on mempool and fees related websites can also be of great help for newbies).

[Coyster]

Mistakes such as this one aren't uncommon in the network, even users who trade via p2p need to make sure transactions has more than three confirmations before sending their trading partner cash or whatever is part of the deal/transaction, all this are necessary precautions to be carried out if you're a Bitcoin user; always double/triple check addresses before sending, cause any mistake made will be on you, the network is decentralized, so if you lose your funds, they are more or less lost forever, so the responsibility rests on you.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I think his transaction was  manually constructed and he mixed addresses for receiver and change.

The transaction does not have any change. Just one input of 3.49 BTC and one output of 5000 sats.

Usually this happens when someone tries to create a transaction manually or is programming some new piece of software. They set up a small "test" transaction of a few thousands sats, forgetting that you must specify a destination for the full amount of bitcoin you are spending, and the fee is simply calculated by whatever fraction is left that you have not assigned a destination to. Since they only assigned a destination for 5000 sats, the remaining 3.49 BTC was used as a fee, working out to 1.8 million sats/vbyte.

BTC.com mined the block, so the user in question should contact them, explain the situation, sign a message from the input address, and ask for the majority of the funds to be returned. Other mining pools have done this in the past when such obvious mistakes have been made.

[Pffrt]

This can't be the mistake of what you mentioned or the usual mistake we are thinking of. None of the client would suggest such higher fee, no one would use such high fee per byte of course unless they want to gift the sum to the miners. Possible because there are a lot of people who own million worth of crypto, I will not be surprised if it was a gift to the miner.

Other mining pools have done this in the past when such obvious mistakes have been made.

Can you share some? I'm working on an article long ago regarding this. Would be happy to have some.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Can you share some?

Sure.

This user paid a fee of 2.5 BTC by mistake in 2017. Antpool mined the block, and then returned the fee to the user after he appealed to them for help on this forum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1818791.msg18122537#msg18122537

Here's another one back in 2013, where ASICMiner refunded a fee of 200 BTC: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1lb5my/asicminer_refunds_the_accidental_200_btc/

It's also happened on other coins as well. Here, Sparkpool returned 1,050 ETH: https://www.btcnn.com/mining-pool-receives-139000-as-reward-for-returning-accidentally-sent-ethereum/

Indeed, BTC.com have offered to refund an accidental 80 BTC fee in the past. I'm not sure if it was ever claimed, though, but it bodes well for the user in this case if they want to try to claim back their mistaken fee: https://medium.com/@akohut/accidentally-pay-an-80btc-transaction-fee-please-contact-us-for-a-refund-1931b08a2623

[BIT-BENDER]

 I have not been observant with my transactions fee when am sending Bitcoin but for when I had a trouble with my transaction, made a transaction that lasted days before reaching where I sent it, I think it's not that they don't check, they check the price, the address but they don't think that they should not omis transaction fee and like those in my category that have complications in editing it.

[khaled0111]

A similar incident happened to an eth user who accidently sent more than $300k in fees. The good think is that the mining pool which solved the block "SparkPool" agreed to send him back half of the amount.
https://www.coindesk.com/sparkpool-splits-2100-ether-mining-fee-with-accidental-sender

o_e_l_e_o is right. The only thing that can be done right now is to contact the mining pool (btc.com) and proove ownership of the sending address then try to reach a compromise with them.

[RapTarX]

I'm not sure they will return rewards unless the  pool will show good will and assume all costs to cover the mistake made by sender.

If it was a mistake and the owner of the address can prove with signing a message from that address, since the blocked was mined by BTC.com, I'm sure they will come forward and return the BTC. I guess there was a few similar cases we have see. If the user try to get their BTC back & BTC.com don't give back, they will never be supported by community for sure.

[CryptocurencyKing]

Usually this happens when someone tries to create a transaction manually or is programming some new piece of software. They set up a small "test" transaction of a few thousands sats, forgetting that you must specify a destination for the full amount of bitcoin you are spending, and the fee is simply calculated by whatever fraction is left that you have not assigned a destination to. Since they only assigned a destination for 5000 sats, the remaining 3.49 BTC was used as a fee, working out to 1.8 million sats/vbyte.

BTC.com mined the block, so the user in question should contact them, explain the situation, sign a message from the input address, and ask for the majority of the funds to be returned. Other mining pools have done this in the past when such obvious mistakes have been made.

The problem doesn't seem to be a matter of pressing the send button because, your often asked if your sure and notified by the wallet, at least ELECTRUM WALLET does that, it notified you that the amount as fee is unnecessary too high and you could either decline or proceed at that point. So, it's more about the calculations and you've really got to know about what your doing.
My first transaction, I paid a relatively high fee without knowing and it hit me only when the transaction was all done. Have the pay rate in sats per byte was my confusion, I never really understood. So, it's about the learning the math's behind.

And here it is, another use of a signed message. Reasons to suggest why OgNasty's 'Newbies can you sign a message' is important.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If the user try to get their BTC back & BTC.com don't give back, they will never be supported by community for sure.

Well, it depends. If BTC.com have already distributed that $82,000 to miners, then it is no longer theirs to give back. They almost certainly have enough profits that they could refund the user in question, but it would be a gesture of good will as opposed to being required by the community. There is no requirement for mining pools to be a safety net for user mistakes.

at least ELECTRUM WALLET does that

It is highly unlikely that this transaction came from Electrum, or any other mainstream wallet. Every wallet in anything even close to mainstream use knows how to handle change - if it didn't, people would lose money constantly and such a wallet would immediately be abandoned by everyone. Further, no fee slider is automatic algorithm is going to let you go as high as selecting almost 2 million sats/vbyte as a fee for the same reason. As I said in my above comment, this transaction was almost certainly someone trying to craft a transaction manually, sending 5000 sats as a "test", and forgetting to send the rest of his UTXO to a change address. It's a lesson to stick to tried and tested wallets unless you really know what you are doing, and even then, make sure you practice on testnet first before you do something stupid and lose 3.5 BTC in fees.

[Findingnemo]

I am not sure how people make such kind of mistakes, whenever I try to make transaction worth of any amount will follow some process.

First one is checking the destination address manually after pasting them on the sender address so I can avoid sending my Bitcoins to wrong address.

Then fee is another important aspect I lookout for, the best and cheapest I will choose after analyzing the Mempool it hardly take a minute or two find the right one which followed by enabling RBF function.

People who follows the same thing as me can avoid their life savings.

[Dutchyyy]

Unfortunate, but you must be careful with all financial instruments, not only Bitcoin. Few of my fiat bank apps are the same - sending money with one click. And while there could be a chance to get that fiat money back, I can assure you it won't be easy.

[Asuspawer09]

I guess double-checking is always a thing because we are just human and we are not perfect we could make mistakes, but we could avoid them if we are careful.

An excess 0 that you type in the fee could affect the transaction fees, just like what happened last time to a guy in an Ethereum transaction.

But I guess this won't happen to some wallets because I don't think you could edit the fees manually were most like to be a small percentage only of your transactions.

[samputin]

I guess double-checking is always a thing because we are just human and we are not perfect we could make mistakes, but we could avoid them if we are careful.
~

That is true. Double-checking is so important to avoid this kind of mistake. Personally, I don't only double-check. I even triple to quadruple check just to makes sure that I am sending my money (either in fiat or bitcoin) to the correct receiver. We all know that there's no going back once a wrong transaction occurs. Regardless of the amount, this is all a lesson to all of us that we should always think and check before we click.

[hd49728]

Is it a real mistake when the sender sent their transaction, I don't know?

It can be a mistake but it also can be an effort to spread FUD by creating a news on how bad bitcoin transaction if you mistakenly sent it. Bitcoin transaction is bad because it is irreversible and you can not fix mistakes. If the loss is big, the sender can sign a message and send request to mining pool owner and appeal to get it back. It is still bad when you have to depend on the mining pool owner's decisions. If a loss is small, I doubt that the pool owner will help you.

It is about amount and fee but there are other things when you make transactions: receiver addresses. How to lose your Bitcoins with CTRL-C CTRL-V

[akirasendo17]

I think if someone does that he is not thinking properly at that moment, maybe he might overlook the value, This is where I always say to all of my friends who are also into crypto, that if your tired or not feeling well, just sleep and do that thing tomorrow, working or doing something when you are tired or not in the mood will destroy or you'll mainly commit a mistake.

[Maxstl007]

This is very sad, there are few cases like this in 2020 and the pool return the asset back to the sender, I don't know how they managed to pull that off though, I hope the receiver will have a change of mind and send the BTC back to the rightful owner and if it's pool settlement I hope there will be a solution

[blckhawk]

"Think twice before finalizing transaction by pressing send" have to be  the rule for every bitcoiner, no matter if he is a beginner or more experienced.  Write it on paper in bold capital and keep in front of you when working with crypto. Rush leads to irreparable losses. Once in block the  transaction can't be turned the other way. Another unfortunate user payed $82,082 fee for $1.18 worth transaction.

If you pay $ 82,082 for a $ 1.18 transaction, there won't be enough hair in your ass.

https://u.today/someone-just-paid-whopping-82k-to-send-1-worth-of-bitcoin

"An extremely unlucky Bitcoin user has just thrown away 3.49 BTC ($82,082 at the time of writing) on a 0.00005000 BTC ( $1.18) transaction in block 662052.   "

$82k?! That was so expensive. I felt bad for the user. That is why we should always check the details before hitting the send button. This is not only applicable to newbies but also to everyone because we are just only humans and we can do something unexpected error. Check the details starting from the amount of money you will send, the fees, and the address because there several users who also made an error upon entering the address like some characters are missing and more. In my case, I always scrutinize all the details and I even stare at it for a second just to make sure the detail is right.