Sending 0.55 ETH cost nearly 2.6 million US dollars, this mysterious transaction caused great speculation in the community

Editor's Note: This article comes fromUnitimes（ID：Uni-times）Editor's Note: This article comes from

, by Jhonny, published with permission.

On the Ethereum blockchain network, users can send cryptocurrencies or execute smart contract transactions by paying transaction fees to miners.

According to ETH Gas Station, the recommended fee for a standard Ethereum transaction is $0.153; for faster transactions, the fee can be as high as $0.2.

But the average transaction fee on the ethereum network skyrocketed overnight as a user spent millions of dollars in transaction fees to send a small amount of ETH.

According to the data of the blockchain browser Etherscan (see the figure below), at 9:47 am UTC on June 10, a transaction with a transaction amount of only 0.55 ETH (worth approximately $133.86) was sent. The fee was a whopping 10,668.73 ETH (worth nearly $2.6 million).

Due to this strange transaction, the average transaction fee on the Ethereum network immediately shot up to a new all-time high.

Analytics platform Glassnode addressed this in a recent tweet, stating that this is the largest increase in transaction fees in Ethereum’s history. Glassnode says:

“Ethereum transaction fees spiked to $2,631,127 in one hour. Historically, this is the highest we’ve ever seen. This increase is due to a transaction that spent over $2.5 million in fees moving 0.55 ETH .”

After news of the mysterious transaction spread, community members began to speculate as to what was behind the huge fee.

Some speculated it could be money laundering or just a simple operational error. For example, Ethhub co-founder Anthony Sassano believes that such a high fee is either due to a mistake or may be a kind of money laundering.

Anthony said: “It could be a mistake, or some form of money laundering or money laundering. Owner."

But money laundering seems unlikely, as the fees go to miners on the ethereum network. Unless the miners colluded with the sender of this transaction, the possibility of the sender's operation error is higher than that.

Anthony also explained that the wallet address sending the transaction could be from a cryptocurrency exchange. If so, exchanges could theoretically communicate with mining pools in an attempt to recoup those millions of dollars in fees.

Still, another, more likely theory is that it was caused by a bug in the software of the entity executing the ethereum transaction. A Twitter user with the handle “FollowTheChain” addressed the possibility, arguing that the address that initiated the transaction could belong to an exchange that is likely running a fractional reserve regime.

FollowTheChain explained: "My opinion is: it's not a finger error. It's not money laundering. The transaction (withdrawal?) (initiated by this address) is carried out automatically, and it continues (transaction) as if nothing happened. This This incident was caused by a bug in the software that controls these funds. Most likely, an entity (maybe an exchange?) is running a fractional reserve regime.”

By looking at the transaction on the blockchain browser Etherscan, it seems that the wallet address that sent the 0.55 ETH transaction is held by an exchange, because the address has indeed been sending out transactions frequently.

A fully decentralized blockchain public network like Ethereum cannot reverse transactions or smart contract operations. When a user sends an asset or data by mistake, the transaction cannot be reversed due to the decentralized nature of the network.

Some see this as one of the downsides of decentralized crypto assets. They somehow force users to take full responsibility for their transactions, since there is no third party or central entity to intervene.

However, one advantage of public chains such as Ethereum is that all data on the network is completely open and transparent. This means, it is possible to determine which address sent or received a certain transaction. If the address (such as the address of an exchange or mining pool) is open and transparent, then you can try to resolve it directly between the two parties. Likewise, the transparency of crypto assets and blockchain networks enables exchanges and analytics firms to track and detect suspicious transactions, addressing situations such as missending fees and diverting proceeds after hacks.

As it stands, if the $2.6 million fee was a "mistake" or caused by a "software bug," the person or entity paying the fee would have to negotiate with the miner or miner who mined the block containing the transaction. pool to communicate. Given that cryptocurrency miners are paid for contributing their computing power to mine blocks, miners can choose to negotiate with senders.