Foundry returns 8.18 BTC transaction fee

[btc_angela]

Here is block 875475: https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000039848db13649df25e64c877d889a331d569d7e198d76
I didn't go to see which specific transaction it is as this block contains ~4200 transactions.



https://x.com/foundryservices/status/1872629580487426221

I'm just curious though as how they know the individual who made this transaction? Addresses doesn't have a name unless the individual contacted them first? Could that be the case here?

Although this is not the first time that we have heard a Bitcoin mining company return or refunded a huge transaction. Self-Claimed Victim Says Hackers Paid the 83.6 BTC Fees.

[Ambatman]

The individual Would have contacted them first and Send something like a proof of ownership of the address
Maybe by sending a signed message by said address.
Well sharing the news and complying would do them more good than neglecting and pretending they know nothing.
Now the public are going to look at them in positive light after seeing their post.

[Jating]

That is true, Bitcoin address doesn't have names attached to it. So before they know the individual, the person might have reach to Foundry first or as what they say on their Tweets, there are a lot who told them about it.

So after the individual has gotten hold of them, the next thing is to verify the address, sign it just like what we do here to prove ownership of the address. After checking and doing their due diligence, then that's the time they have refunded it to the person thru his Bitcoin address.

[Alphakilo]

I knew something like this was going to happen eventually after I saw the news of this person. Someone already makes the type of mistake he did and was refunded. There's still going to cases like this in the future.

As for how they were able to identify the person who make the transaction, it is not that difficult. Someone with the amount of Bitcoin should have more and should know one or two who is who in the industry to speak with and help make contact Foundry with proof.

Congratulations to the individual and to Foundry for being a great organization.

[Fiatless]

Antpool said in a statement on November 30 that it would refund the transaction fees but asked the private key holder of the reportedly compromised address to sign a message for verification https://theminermag.com/news/2023-11-27/83-btc-bitcoin-transaction-fee-hacker/

Based on the second article you referenced a signed and verified message will be the best means to prove ownership of the wallet. But in this case the wallet was already compromised by hackers so Antpool requested for other means to verify the real owner. The owner might have to sacrifice his privacy to prove that he is the owner.

[acroman08]

I'm just curious though as how they know the individual who made this transaction? Addresses doesn't have a name unless the individual contacted them first? Could that be the case here?

the only way they can know who made the transaction is if that person contacted them first and informed them about the issue he is facing, so yeah, that is what most likely happened, I'm pretty sure they asked that person first for necessary evidence to make sure that they are giving back the BTC to the right person.

the guy is lucky to get his BTC back, 8.18 BTC is a huge amount of money.

[Stalker22]

I'm just curious though as how they know the individual who made this transaction? Addresses doesn't have a name unless the individual contacted them first? Could that be the case here?

It is possible. Their contacts are publicly known, so it is possible that the person in question contacted them personally, besides, they mentioned that they received numerous messages from across the industry on behalf of the user.

Anyway, its a nice gesture from the Antpool. They could have simply kept the money and distributed it to the miners and no one would have held anything against them because thats their right.

[hosemary]

I didn't go to see which specific transaction it is as this block contains ~4200 transactions.

Here is the transaction paying 8.18 BTC as fee.
5348f76fab409ed50917e4633d1e66775feb3359448ff4e6b95bf4d81566097e

Anyway, its a nice gesture from the Antpool.

The transaction in question was included in the blockchain by Foundry USA, not AntPool.

Foundry USA sent back the fee in the following transaction:
8f535301abf316500486a8473ea0f4988b34965545e09e9c17426e6cb1b6d039

[boyptc]

Well done Foundry. This isn't happening anyday and if there's a pool that was able to take it, they'd just play it out as if that's part of how it goes in mining.

There are various ways of proving the ownership of the guy who wrongly sent 8.18 BTC and everyone knows that. Foundry have verified the rightful owner and able to return it, that's already done.

Everyone is happy. Happy new year!

[X-ray]

this is such a good gesture, 8 BTC is a big chunk of money these days and losing it like that would feels really bad.

Well done Foundry. This isn't happening anyday and if there's a pool that was able to take it, they'd just play it out as if that's part of how it goes in mining.

There are various ways of proving the ownership of the guy who wrongly sent 8.18 BTC and everyone knows that. Foundry have verified the rightful owner and able to return it, that's already done.

Everyone is happy. Happy new year!

as far as I know many miners has been doing this kind of refund for people who overpay the fee quite frequently, I heard same case back then and the miner refunded the BTC like antpool, which is such a great gesture tbh.

[BitJannik]

I think the company probably identified the individual through direct contact or external clues linking the wallet address to a person. While bitcoin addresses are pseudonymous, they're not entirely anonymous, especially if someone has publicly associated themselves with an address or reached out to the company.

[FinneysTrueVision]

The user who paid the high fee was a well known THORchain validator. From the details they shared, they exchanged emails with Foundry for several days before they sent him a refund.

To elaborate on what hosseinimr93 shared. We can see in the transaction history of the address that there was a proof of ownership transaction before they received a refund. Here they did a self-transfer from the address with an OP_RETURN message that says “I love the Foundry Team”.
346c7ddd8e74247b119206de6a61cc67c4fd5ab910c6a494325f3b550e970f3b

The transaction after that was a test transfer of 0.01 BTC from Foundry to the user.
8bc2a974ebb38700bf31a56e2cd66edc453da3a7e26a71633776e6cdb82aca78

The final transaction is the refund where Foundry returned 8.17 BTC.
8f535301abf316500486a8473ea0f4988b34965545e09e9c17426e6cb1b6d039

[satscraper]

The user who paid the high fee was a well known THORchain validator.

I assume he  is not novice in bitcoin, thus  wonder how could this happen with him.

His transaction includes OP_Return message ^{with data which are probably of great importance for him}. Does this fact effected the wallet ^{he used} so that it sent the rest to miners rather than to change address? AFAIK, not all wallets allow to use OP_Return in transaction's outputs. There is probability that he constructed the given trx manually and slipped  a cog ^{but I don't credit to this assuming he is experienced user}.

[coolcoinz]

I assume he  is not novice in bitcoin, thus  wander how could this happen with him.

Sometimes people get distracted. Remember the stories about people who threw away their private keys, or even whole computers?
It can happen when you copy amount from somewhere and want to be fast. For instance, in Electrum the amount and fee are one under the other. The size of the fields to fill is exactly the same.
If someone gives you address and amount it's possible to paste it into the "fee" field instead of the one labelled amount. It's just my speculation but the "human error" is usually the culprit and you can avoid it by reading everything once again before sending it.

He was lucky. We can say Foundry gave him a Christmas gift

[JiiBs]

I'm just curious though as how they know the individual who made this transaction? Addresses doesn't have a name unless the individual contacted them first? Could that be the case here?

My point exactly, I was curious to know just how come they claimed to have been in touch since, this might have come from a non custodian address obviously. Third party wallets or exchanges wouldn’t allow for such a flaw as the fees are automated based on the network congestion at the time of initiation.

Haven’t gone through the entire publication from Foundry, it’s of note that, they were reached out to by well meaning individuals over the web and possibly people who knows the individual in person. How would they know?The individual possibly would have raised complaints to friends and family.
Good thing is, the user has them excess fees refunded and that’s what we hope to here in cryptos.

[boyptc]

Well done Foundry. This isn't happening anyday and if there's a pool that was able to take it, they'd just play it out as if that's part of how it goes in mining.

There are various ways of proving the ownership of the guy who wrongly sent 8.18 BTC and everyone knows that. Foundry have verified the rightful owner and able to return it, that's already done.

Everyone is happy. Happy new year!

as far as I know many miners has been doing this kind of refund for people who overpay the fee quite frequently, I heard same case back then and the miner refunded the BTC like antpool, which is such a great gesture tbh.

Yeah, I've heard also the same case in the past but not all are doing this. But it's a nice gesture for any pool that does return overpaid fee.

The user who paid the high fee was a well known THORchain validator. From the details they shared, they exchanged emails with Foundry for several days before they sent him a refund.

So, this is what happened and they're able to verify the guy that did the mistake. It was an honest mistake on his end though and Foundry just can't resist it and good thing they have good vibes and returned what's rightful to the guy. I wonder if other pools will do the same if the guy plead for the same refund.

[Felicity_Tide]

I'm just curious though as how they know the individual who made this transaction? Addresses doesn't have a name unless the individual contacted them first? Could that be the case here?

Although this is not the first time that we have heard a Bitcoin mining company return or refunded a huge transaction. Self-Claimed Victim Says Hackers Paid the 83.6 BTC Fees.

I'm not sure of how foundry had managed to contact the victim here, but since it was a massive issue that caught so many attention in the community, you should expect a swift solution. And of course, the victim might have definitely been told to provide evidence like wallet related details. I had even forgotten about the whole thing until I saw this thread. Not sure of how someone could make such a mistake, but I'm really glad the community helped out, and he got his Bitcoin back. We might see something like this again because no one is above mistakes (even though there are somethings that are not meant to be a mistake).

the only way they can know who made the transaction is if that person contacted them first and informed them about the issue he is facing, so yeah, that is what most likely happened, I'm pretty sure they asked that person first for necessary evidence to make sure that they are giving back the BTC to the right person.

the guy is lucky to get his BTC back, 8.18 BTC is a huge amount of money.

That's just it. What he had as an evidence might have done the talking. And of course, being able to get back 8 BTC, he is probably among the luckiest people in the last month of the just concluded year.

[nakamura12]

That's just it. What he had as an evidence might have done the talking. And of course, being able to get back 8 BTC, he is probably among the luckiest people in the last month of the just concluded year.

If I remember correctly, it's not the first time that a bitcoin user was refunded. He might be the victim because he mistakenly used 8btc as a transaction fee but it was his fault and foundry team being a good team returned it or refunded the mistake fee. It was an honest mistake for the guy and let's just hope that he won't make the same mistake twice. I would be devastated if it happened to me since it's not a small amount of money. I would also say he is lucky because there's a chance that it won't be refunded (not that I am saying that Foundry team won't refund - just a speculation) since it's not the miners fault that it became 8 btc just for a transaction fee but the sender's fault.

[headingnorth]

Thank you Foundry! That is why I invest in Bitcoin. The miners and devs are honorable people.

I assume he  is not novice in bitcoin, thus  wander how could this happen with him.

Simple human error, probably a typo. Could be as simple as placing a decimal point or comma in the wrong place.

[goldkingcoiner]