Ether Mining Pool Etherchain to Keep $2.6M Transaction Fee

Ether mining pool Etherchain has decided to keep the $2.6 million transaction fee that was sent last week as one of two mysterious transactions.

On June 10, an anonymous user paid 10,668 ETH ($2.6M) in gas fees to send just $133 in ether. The same wallet address initiated a similar transaction the following day, paying $2.6M to transfer 350 ETH.

Members of the Ethereum community were perplexed by the series of transactions, with most concluding that the user must have mistakenly input the fee as the amount to be sent. 

Etherchain, who was responsible for mining the second transaction, announced at the time they would be freezing the transaction and attempting to contact the sender. 


In a subsequent tweet made June 15, the mining pool announced that it had reversed course, and would be distributing the entirety of the $2.6M fee to its miners within the next four days. 

Bitfly justified its decision by claiming they had given the unknown sender “sufficient time” to contact them. The company also said “multiple people” had attempted to lay claim to the erroneously sent ether, but were unable to produce a valid signature for the account. 

Members of the crypto community pushed back against Bitfly’s decision, with most replies in the comments asking the mining pool to extend its waiting period. 

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