Bitcoin User Accidentally Hands Over $105,000 Fee on $10 Transaction

[Halifat]

On Monday, a bitcoin user managed to send nearly an entire coin to miners by mistake—sending a 0.99 BTC fee on a simple $10 transfer to Kraken.

The $10 That Cost a Fortune
With the average high-priority bitcoin transaction fee sitting near $0.30 today, this unlucky user shelled out roughly 222,602 times more than necessary.

Source link: https://share.google/VISZ6xWQl58UDehFH

i need clarification on this because as a newbie and find it difficult to understand it

[headingnorth]

This is an easy mistake to make.

It seems like a very easy fix to simply limit the fee amount that can be manually entered by the sender.
It makes no sense such a large fee could be allowed to go through for such a small amount.

This kind of thing just provides more reason for people to think of bitcoin as a scam.

[rdluffy]

When sending BTC to someone, several wallets, such as Electrum, allow you to adjust the fee manually
By entering it manually, there is a risk that you will make a mistake and enter the wrong fee, which could result in you spending more than necessary

I don't know exactly what the user of this transaction did wrong, but it's not that uncommon; there have been several cases like this
Sometimes the pool may refund this fee, but it's not obligation

[OsaiEmma]

This is an easy mistake to make.

It seems like a very easy fix to simply limit the fee amount that can be manually entered by the sender.
It makes no sense such a large fee could be allowed to go through for such a small amount.

This kind of thing just provides more reason for people to think of bitcoin as a scam.

Some wallets gives a warning too if the fees are too high or too low

[headingnorth]

When sending BTC to someone, several wallets, such as Electrum, allow you to adjust the fee manually
By entering it manually, there is a risk that you will make a mistake and enter the wrong fee, which could result in you spending more than necessary

I don't know exactly what the user of this transaction did wrong, but it's not that uncommon; there have been several cases like this
Sometimes the pool may refund this fee, but it's not obligation

The fee is usually adjusted by a slider bar that can be accidentally moved too far to the right, resulting in massively overpaying.

Another source of confusion is that the fee can be shown in either dollars or SATS. So someone might mistakenly believe they were paying
a fee of only 10,000 SATS when they actually paid $10,000 USD. OOPS.

[OgNasty]

I would guess this is probably the result of manually building transactions, likely as the result of coding done by AI. Maybe that is a random guess, but I’m seeing more and more people rely on coding from AI that is littered with issues. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone was testing an AI coded implementation using their hot wallet and effectively drained themself.

[headingnorth]

This is an easy mistake to make.

It seems like a very easy fix to simply limit the fee amount that can be manually entered by the sender.
It makes no sense such a large fee could be allowed to go through for such a small amount.

This kind of thing just provides more reason for people to think of bitcoin as a scam.

Some wallets gives a warning too if the fees are too high or too low

Yes but the responsibility shouldn't be left up to the wallet provider IMO.

The fee limit should be implemented at the network level, so regardless of the wallet
such a big mistake would be impossible to make.

This should have been corrected years ago. But it seems they want to make it as easy
as possible for you to screw up because it benefits them.

It hasn't been corrected because Bitcoin devs are garbage.

[Donneski]

From what I know, this kind of mistake only happens when someone manually sets their transaction fee instead of letting the wallet calculate it automatically. Most wallets today use dynamic fee estimators to prevent exactly this kind of error but from what you said, it's obvious the person used the manual route. The fact that this user paid 0.99 BTC on a $10 transfer shows how important it is to understand how UTXOs and sat/vByte calculations work before sending funds. Mistakes like this make me appreciate how much attention we need to pay before hitting “send”.

Hopefully, the miners or the pool that processed the transaction considers refunding the fee like we've seen in some other past similar cases

[un_rank]

This should have been corrected years ago. But it seems they want to make it as easy
as possible for you to screw up because it benefits them.

You are drawing conspiracy theories here. There is no "they" who are benefiting from this, tx fee goes to the pool that confirmed the transaction and in some cases they return such erroneously large fee paid.

In theory freedom means you are able to do what you want as you want to, this means sending a very high fee to make your transaction a priority. This is measured directly with the feerate and not an amount in USD.

There are other features that could be added to make bitcoin more PG, but they would be undermining the features of freedom and decentralization.

- Jay -

[finaleshot2016]

Are crypto users really confident now that they won’t make a mistake? I’ve made a lot of transactions in different chains, but I still double-check everything especially with BTC, where some wallets can be really confusing. Also, why do some platforms even allow this kind of transaction fee? It’s already 2025, and with UI like these, it feels like they’re setting users up to make mistakes, like it's intended

I don’t want to tolerate errors like this, but as a platform or wallet dev, they should at least set a limit or show a reminder. It’s 2025, yet there are still lazy or maybe greedy dev who seem to take advantage of users’ mistakes. Also, Imagine that we're promoting a user-friendly and good investment asset so that even traditional old people will use BTC but look, mistakes like this happening so how can people adapt if this is happening to them? How can be bitcoin a global asset if it's not very easy to use... do you feel me?

[Findingnemo]

The fee is usually adjusted by a slider bar that can be accidentally moved too far to the right, resulting in massively overpaying.

Another source of confusion is that the fee can be shown in either dollars or SATS. So someone might mistakenly believe they were paying
a fee of only 10,000 SATS when they actually paid $10,000 USD. OOPS.

Assuming you are talking about Electrum and yes we can adjust the fee by sliding the bar. And there are three methods to chose like ETA, Static and mempool but none of them would ever create a TX with such a massive fee because network is almost empty and 1sat/vb txs are at the priority for months now.

So the only possibility is user made a mistake by entering the figures in the wrong field, like he thought the amount to be sent, but entered in the fee area.

We also had events where mining pools returned the fee when users mistakenly created such TX but it doesn't mean it will happen all the time. Being our own banks comes with responsibility too.

[reefsea]

This is not the first time this has happened, but it is strange how everyone is in such a hurry to make transactions that they make mistakes that can actually be minimized from the start.

In addition, I think for some wallets, including hard and cold, it is actually possible to make adjustments to the fees that must be paid, but again, it seems that there are still many people who are too hasty to make such conditions occur.

Even though it is quite regrettable, in the end this can be a lesson for most of us because carelessness can make us lose and don't let us feel the same way where we are too hasty and we don't even pay attention to the fees we have to pay when transacting.

[HelliumZ]

On Monday, a bitcoin user managed to send nearly an entire coin to miners by mistake—sending a 0.99 BTC fee on a simple $10 transfer to Kraken.

The $10 That Cost a Fortune
With the average high-priority bitcoin transaction fee sitting near $0.30 today, this unlucky user shelled out roughly 222,602 times more than necessary.

Source link: https://share.google/VISZ6xWQl58UDehFH

i need clarification on this because as a newbie and find it difficult to understand it

How is this possible where transaction fees of over $100k are paid for sending an amount of $10? This is mainly due to mistakes made by those who manually set transaction fees. These mistakes are usually made by users and are not caused by any errors or flaws in the blockchain network. However, I don't know if such mistakes have happened in the past, but there is definitely a solution to all these mistakes where a user has paid a fee of 100k dollars for just 10 dollars.

[HONDACD125]

This kind of thing just provides more reason for people to think of bitcoin as a scam.

Such people need to do more research about Bitcoin and its network before thinking this way, and if they think they don't have time for it, they can think whatever they want, but only because a user makes a mistake and loses a large amount in fees because they were too busy double-checking everything, it doesn't mean Bitcoin is a scam, and besides, Bitcoin is not control by an entity who will benefit from these fees, it goes to the miners, and no one knows which miners gets it.

Yes but the responsibility shouldn't be left up to the wallet provider IMO.

The fee limit should be implemented at the network level, so regardless of the wallet
such a big mistake would be impossible to make.

This should have been corrected years ago. But it seems they want to make it as easy
as possible for you to screw up because it benefits them.

The responsibility is not left up to the wallet provider, it's left up to the user making the transaction. You shouldn't be in a hurry to make a transaction that you don't see everything properly before you broadcast it, and if you are so busy, you shouldn't make the transaction at that moment. And, why should it be limited by the network? I want to have the freedom to decide how much I want to pay in fees for my transaction, and maybe I'm not okay with a fixed amount, so this isn't a problem from the network, users need to be more careful with their transactions.
What you said at last makes no sense at all, because developers don't get anything from the network, it's the miners to get the rewards, and miners don't do development work.

It hasn't been corrected because Bitcoin devs are garbage.

Oh, so you are another one of those Bitcoin critics. I get it now.

[FinneysTrueVision]

There is always speculation, when somebody overpays by such a huge amount that they might be trying to launder dirty coins. The transaction was seen in the mempool 9 minutes before it was mined, so it is not a very plausible theory. The pool that mined it, MARA, is also known for censoring transactions, so it is unlikely that they would willingly be involved in money laundering. I would also assume that Kraken, which received the $10, would have the information to identify the user if they were questioned by law enforcement.

I know that the most popular hardware wallets have security features to prevent overpaying by so much. The user is still using legacy addresses so maybe they aren’t using the most up to date tools or it could have been sent from a service that uses automation that screwed up.

[macson]

Mishaps like this typically stem from wallet settings that let users manually input fees or total outputs—leaving plenty of room for human error. If the change or recipient fields aren’t configured correctly, the network gleefully pockets the excess.

It has been explained in this section that most likely the error was caused by the user perhaps setting the fees incorrectly in their wallet, so that he ended up sending such a small transaction with such a large fee.

My guess is that he most likely misjudged that he should send 0.99 BTC with a fee of $10 USD, but unfortunately he instead sent $10 USD with a fee of 0.99 BTC. Incidents like this have happened several times and it is no longer surprising that some people are too careless to immediately send their bitcoins without first checking their transaction fees.

[sunsilk]

Customization of the fee makes a user fall for this mistake. We're not sure if that's an intentional mistake or just a simple and honest mistake.

Mostly, it's the latter and this isn't the first time that someone has made this mistake. It also happens into some other cryptos like ETH and the others before, although specifically for ETH - it's no longer a PoW.

There is always speculation, when somebody overpays by such a huge amount that they might be trying to launder dirty coins.

And lastly, this OP.

[philipma1957]

Well maybe it was done on purpose to make btc look stupid.

No holder of  1 coin in a wallet has any business sending $10 bucks from that wallet.

If you have 1 coin

You need 4 separate wallets.

0.8 cold wallet and leave it alone
0.1 cold wallet and leave it alone

0.08 hot wallet bigger sends
0.02 hot wallet smaller sends.

Maybe even an LN wallet.

But to send 10 dollars from a wallet with 100k plus in it is stupid as fuck.

I am on a piece of crap tablet can some one post the actual tx link and not a photo of it?

I want to back trace the sending address.