Mystery of $5.2 million Ethereum fees continues
Mining pool Bitfly, who received half of the fee, have distributed it to their miners however Sparkpool is still determined to find answers
Just under a week ago, two incredibly surprising transactions were made on the Ethereum network. On June 10, Sparkpool mining pool received a $2.6 million fee for a transaction of only 0.5 ETH.
Then, the next day, another transaction paid a fee of $2.6 million to Bitfly for a transaction of 350 ETH.
Both fees were sent by the same wallet, and since last week, both Sparkpool and Bitfly have been trying to track the sender to return a portion of the fee out of good faith.
Bitfly made the decision yesterday to distribute the fee amongst their pool as a result of no credible individuals coming forward to claim the fee.
As the sender of the transaction https://t.co/h21A2Th4fw has not contacted us after 4 days we have made the final decision to distribute the tx fee to the miners of our pool. Given the amount involved we believe 4 days is sufficient time for the sender to get in touch with us.
— Bitfly (@etherchain_org) June 15, 2020
When one individual on Twitter challenged Bitfly about the length of time they have allowed for someone to come forward, they were quick to point out that they are a mining pool and not an arbiter of the network. As such, they are not under any sort of obligation to return missent transaction fees.
It is sufficient time in our opinion especially as this event got lots on coverage on social & traditional media all around the world. If you are handling accounts in excess of 40,000 ETH you should notice immediately that 20,000 ETH are missing.
— Bitfly (@etherchain_org) June 15, 2020
Sparkpool however, has yet to make a decision. They are still waiting for any other information to come forward. Sparkpool has the advantage of having dealt with similar issues before, notably when a user sent a transaction fee of 2,100 ETH for a transaction of just 0.1 ETH. They were refunded half the amount.
It is sufficient time in our opinion especially as this event got lots on coverage on social & traditional media all around the world. If you are handling accounts in excess of 40,000 ETH you should notice immediately that 20,000 ETH are missing.
— Bitfly (@etherchain_org) June 15, 2020
Sparkpool’s miners must be watching enviously as Bitfly’s pool receives a cut of the transaction fee. Although it does only seem to be a matter of time before Sparkpool will distribute the fee as no one seems to be coming forward.
A popular suggestion that is that the fees might be related to an unsuccessful hack on an exchange. After gaining access to an exchange’s credentials via an attack, the hackers would naturally try to send the seized funds to their own accounts, however, these would be prevented due to security measures on wallets.
Therefore, in an attempt to blackmail the exchange, hackers may have started to send meaningless transactions with disproportionately high fees to bleed off the funds they had gained access to in an attempt to blackmail the exchange for a ransom.
