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AntPool, a distinguished Bitcoin mining pool, has made headlines by agreeing to refund an unusually excessive transaction payment of $3 million.

This determination follows the unintentional payment of this fee by a Bitcoin consumer, setting a brand new file for a single transaction payment in US dollar phrases.

A Bitcoin Anomaly And AntPool’s Response

The incident unfolded final week when a Bitcoin transaction included a payment of 83.65 BTC, equal to roughly $3.1 million, to switch 55.77 BTC price round $2.1 million. This extraordinary fee, amounting to over 120,528 occasions the same old price, was initially frozen by AntPool’s danger management system.

The transaction, which drastically lowered the sender’s steadiness earlier than the transaction of 139.42 BTC price $5.2 million, was processed in block 818,087 mined by AntPool. Until lately, the mining pool had not publicly addressed the incident.

In a press release launched on November thirtieth, AntPool clarified that it had briefly frozen the payment upon detecting the weird transaction. The mining pool has since invited the transaction’s originator to achieve out earlier than December tenth, 2023, to confirm their identification and declare the refund.

To facilitate this, AntPool has suggested the proprietor to work out a signing software, equivalent to Electrum or Bitcoin Core, utilizing the non-public key related to the tackle that initiated the transaction. The course of entails signing the message “AntPool” and forwarding the signed textual content to AntPool’s assist electronic mail.

Victim Claims And Security Concerns

Following the incident, a Bitcoin consumer claimed to be the sufferer of the exorbitant transaction payment, alleging that their pockets had been hacked. The consumer, recognized as “83_5BTC” on X, acknowledged that they’d transferred 139 BTC to a brand new chilly pockets, which was instantly redirected to a different pockets.

It was my BTC that paid the excessive payment.

I created a brand new chilly pockets, transferred 139BTC to it and it acquired transferred out to a different pockets instantly. 😵

I can solely think about that somebody was working a script on that pockets and that the script had a bizarre payment calculation. ☹️

— Hackers_paid_83.5BTC_fee_with_my_money (@83_5BTC) November 24, 2023

This hacking declare provides complexity to AntPool’s activity of refunding the payment, as they should confirm the true proprietor of the funds.

Mononaut, a pseudonymous developer behind the Bitcoin explorer Mempool, indicated that the hack may need originated from a “low-entropy wallet,” probably a mind pockets. Such wallets, fashioned with “inadequate” randomness, are particularly vulnerable to safety breaches.

6/ Since the pockets is compromised, this message may have been signed by both the sufferer or attacker (or anybody else who brute-forced the unhealthy entropy).

If @AntPoolofficial returns the payment, they’ll want one other technique to confirm the sufferer’s identification.https://t.co/18wKhzuYux

— mononaut (@mononautical) November 27, 2023

Mononaut additional elaborated that given the pockets’s compromised standing, the message’s signature may have originated from the sufferer, the attacker, or every other particular person who exploited the pockets’s weak safety.

Therefore, AntPool would require an alternate technique to authenticate the identification of the rightful proprietor earlier than continuing with the payment refund.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s market conduct has proven a gradual but constant upward pattern. The crypto notably breached the $38,000 mark, demonstrating a bullish momentum. However, it has since skilled a slight pullback, with its present buying and selling value hovering round $37,930 on the time of writing.

Featured picture from Unsplash, Chart from TradingView