A user paid $80,000 for a transaction of just over 1 USD in bitcoin (BTC). Was it really a big mistake? We tell you!
Yes, someone paid over $80,000 in fees for a transaction of just over 1 USD in bitcoin (BTC). Unfortunately, it’s an event that’s become all too common in the crypto community, but… Was it really a mistake? Or, on the contrary, was it entirely intentional?
BTC errors cost $80,000
The event was reported by a Twitter account called Bitcoin Block Bot, which posted on December 19 that someone had paid 3.49 BTC on block 662,052.
At first glance, this looks like a human error that cost $80,000. The truth is that, unfortunately, this wouldn’t be an unusual event on the crypto-currency market. The user made the transaction at a time when the average bitcoin transaction fee was $6.
In fact, on several occasions we’ve noted situations on CryptoTrendency where people who have made costly mistakes have asked the community for help.
As a result, community reactions on Twitter pointed to possible human error. However, on Reddit, one user suggested that there might be something else going on.
Is it an intentional error?
If we dig a little deeper, the address from which the transaction was sent received a total of more than 19,496 BTC and carried out more than 12,209 transactions, according to blockchain.com.
Furthermore, at the time of writing, blockchain.com reports that the said address currently has a final balance of 2.09 BTC. In fact, today it has received more than 1 BTC spread over more than 16 transactions.
The truth is, this raises a lot of suspicion, and that’s exactly what the Reddit user pointed out. “This is money laundering,” noted the user under the pseudonym mycarjustdied.
If we follow the money laundering hypothesis, it essentially explains that it could be a miner who has the ability to create a high-commission transaction and pay the fee with bitcoins without being laundered, then cash out the payment and receive BTC that has clearly already been laundered.
Did this necessarily happen? No, there’s no confirmed version. In fact, at least for the time being, no user has come forward on social networks to ask for help after such an error. Bear in mind that this is usually the first reaction after making this kind of mistake.
We’d like to know your opinion: was it a human error that cost a lot of money? Or, on the contrary, is it a bitcoin laundering ring?
