Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact us for a refund

https://blog.btc.com/accidentally-pay-an-80btc-transaction-fee-please-contact-us-for-a-refund-b9f8bb4ff65a

by janpio • 9 years ago

101 111 9 years ago

blog.btc.com

aphextron• 9 years ago

No explanation? How is it even possible for something like this to happen?

krallja3• 9 years ago

Like a check, you can write whatever value you want in the "Amount" box.

mhluongo4• 9 years ago

Most wallets estimate fees based on transaction size, so this did require a particular wallet or using an "advanced setting"

mhluongo4• 9 years ago

Someone set a custom fee or built a transaction manually and made a mistake. Alternatively, someone just learned an expensive programming lesson.

cjbprime• 9 years ago

Some exchanges/apps have poor UX that makes the purpose of text fields unclear and allows you to get them confused with each other.

zargon2• 9 years ago

You ask for an explanation as if it's btc.com's mistake. It's not. They merely mined the block that had the fee. They have no way of knowing why the entity that signed that transaction gave it the fee that they did.

FabHK• 9 years ago

In a transaction, you specify the inputs (addresses, sources of BTC, and they're completely used up), and the output (destination addresses) and how much each destination gets.

A typical transaction might look like this:

1) Inputs: my wallet (1 BTC, and this is all taken)

2) Outputs:

2a) pay something to merchant A (0.1 BTC), 2b) pay most of the rest back to my wallet (0.89 BTC)

3) Remainder: The rest (1 - 0.1 - 0.89 = 0.01 BTC) goes to the miner as the transaction fee.

The sum of outputs ((2, what you spend) must be less than or equal to the sum of inputs ((1), what you got) - that's checked by the miners.

Any remainder (3), however, is taken to be a mining fee and goes to the miner.

So, could be what happened here is that someone forgot to add (2b), paying the "change" back into their own wallet.

By default, then, it becomes (3): transaction fee.

This doesn't happen with well written wallet software, of course, but if you manually create transactions, who knows.

woah• 9 years ago

The correct fee should have been 2BTC?

jldugger2• 9 years ago

I think it's supposed to be approx 10-20 satoshis at the moment.

mod• 9 years ago

According to the article, 2btc

mhluongo4• 9 years ago

Actually, they're based on tx size. Fees are estimates as satoshis/byte. 10-20 satoshis is incredibly cheap

unknownsavage• 9 years ago

They're basing on that if someone was sending a stupidly aggressive fee (400 satoshis per byte). Anything above that is just obviously an error.

You can get an idea of what fees should be with estimatefee.com

mootothemax• 9 years ago

the correct fee should have been approximately 2BTC.

At current rates isn't that a $5,000ish transaction fee?

Have I misunderstood something? That seems like a crazy amount, especially given the hype surrounding Bitcoin.

TylerE• 9 years ago

Be your own bank they said, it'll be awesome!

matt_wulfeck3• 9 years ago

Don't you know Bitcoin is a system with really low fees and fast transactions??

nas• 9 years ago

Well, the Bitcoin supporters are composed of a wide range of people. Some of them are too optimistic about the technology. Unlike some people thought, transactions are not cheap (although there are scaling plans to bring the current high cost down). Being your own bank is not easy. All the things that the current banking system does is not useless overhead. So, you can't just throw it all out. OTOH, crypto-currencies potentially allow nearly anyone to be a bank if they want. That could lead to innovation and reduced banking costs. Right now, it is the "wild west" and so caution is advised.

sp3324• 9 years ago

I haven't looked too closely at this transaction, but here's some info on how normal fees are calculated: http://bitcoinfees.com/ Very new and very small transactions are charged extra to discourage spam.

As noted at the bottom of the article, each miner really gets to set their own fee, below which they will just ignore transactions. But the "satoshi client" is the default and most other clients mimic it.

Edit: one of the comments mentions that "multi-sig" transactions are more expensive, and I don't know how to explain that part.

mhluongo4• 9 years ago

Multi-sig transactions are larger, and fees are based on tx size.

TD-Linux2• 9 years ago

That information is out of date - in particular, "priority" is long gone. Nowadays most miners (and Bitcoin Core) maximize for highest fee profits - basically select transactions highest fee/kb first.

tveita• 9 years ago

I assume that's for the entire block. Recent blocks hover somewhere between 1000 and 2000 transactions per 10-minute block, which gives a modest 2.5 USD fee per transaction.

sireat• 9 years ago

By what measure is a 2.5USD fee modest?

2.5USD is not very competitive with the old guard unless you are moving more than $100.

I had to pay $20 to sweep some old wallets(circa 2011). In my case it was worth it, but there is so much dust out there which is not worth collecting any more.

People used to tip using BTC.. those days are gone.

zargon2• 9 years ago

Bitcoin fees are based on the amount of space that the transaction takes up in the block. A block contains on average 1,000 to 2,000 transactions. The average transaction only has a couple inputs and outputs. But you can make a transaction that has as many inputs and outputs as you want, which increases the size (in bytes) of the transaction. The person who spent the 80BTC on fees in this block used up about half of the space in the block, hence the high fee. It was also spread over several transactions, not a single one.

dk89966• 9 years ago

I think cryptocurrency have a future but things like that will prevent it from mass adoption. Good luck explaining this to a non-CS, why a transaction cost .5$ one time and 5000$ another time.

simias• 9 years ago

The fee is normally proportional to the size of the transaction (i.e. mostly the number of input and output addresses), not the amount of bitcoins you move. That is, it's more expensive to move 1BTC from 10 addresses than 1000BTC from a single one.

So if you make a huge transaction and you want it confirmed quickly it can get quite expensive.

CydeWeys2• 9 years ago

This is why it's a good idea to consolidate dust during off-peak hours when the fees are lower, so that if you do need to spend a lot urgently, the total fee you pay is much less.

It's kind of like the electricity company giving you lower rates for doing your laundry at night.

sputknick• 9 years ago

Bitcoin is currently dealing with a scaling problem. People are creating more transactions than can fit in the blocks. So if you want your transaction included in a block, you need to be willing to pay a higher transaction fee. the metric for this is satoshi/byte (s/b). Not long ago (Christmas time) you could easily get a transaction in a block for 60 s/b, now it's like 300-400 s/b. There is an update in place that will go live August 1 that should fix this.

SparkyMcUnicorn• 9 years ago

From what I hear, this update make bitcoin no longer decentralized. Is Segwit centralized?

flashdance4• 9 years ago

I haven't taken a very close look at the transactions, but it seems like the 'appropriate' 2BTC fee that btc.com is talking about pays for 11 extremely large transactions, with around 100-160 inputs each and a half dozen outputs.

A typical bitcoin transaction is made up of 1-2 inputs and 2 outputs (destination and change), so this person is doing the equivalent of thousands of transactions on the network.

That being said, bitcoin transactions are fairly expensive, (I paid $1 the other day to buy a steam game, eww), but there's a scaling roadmap being implemented to lower fees going forward, likely within the next month or so.

But yeah, right now the equivalent of a few thousand transactions will cost a few thousand bucks.

samstave4• 9 years ago

ELI5 what type of transaction could have been done which is that large/complex that also would be 100% on the up-n-up and not trafficking [something], laundering [something]?

dk89966• 9 years ago

I am with you on this one. BTC is supposed to solve the problems current systems have, the key ones being; high tx fees and slow tx.

dreamdu5t• 9 years ago

It was never intended to solve that. As described by the bitcoin paper, it solves the problem of decentralized cryptocurrency which is minting and preventing double-spending without a central authority.

sp3324• 9 years ago

BTC solves the problem of preventing double-spending without a trusted central ledger.

mbrock3• 9 years ago

Why does Bitcoin have to solve those problems? Is it completely failed even if it doesn't provide fast and cheap transactions? What if it turns out that Bitcoin has a unique role to play as the first PoW blockchain and the only successful blockchain with an anonymous, nearly legendary creation narrative? Gold is slower to transport than bank notes, but it's still uniquely valuable.

abrkn• 9 years ago

This happens when someone manually crafts a transaction.

In Bitcoin, if you have an input of 100 BTC and make a transaction with a single output of 20 BTC, the remaining 80 BTC are kept by the miner. There's no wallet software that would let you do this.

It's like paying a $20 check with a $100 bill and saying "keep the change."

jstanley2• 9 years ago

More like paying a $20 bill with a $100 note and not saying "don't keep the change"!

wmf5• 9 years ago

There is a way to mostly prevent these errors BTW: Change the transaction format so that the sum of input values must equal the sum of output values (edit: including a special fee output which should only be ~8 bytes); this would prevent money from being "lost" as fees. If someone is planning to change the transaction format anyway (ahem) maybe they could also add this safety feature.

zwily2• 9 years ago

That would eliminate fees entirely as well, unless you're proposing an additional "fee" output. That would take additional space, which means it won't flow as space is at a premium. I don't know of any wallet software that would let someone do this, so this must have been a manually-created transaction.

wmf5• 9 years ago

If only there was some way to increase the space available for transactions!

But your overall point is well taken: Bitcoin is sociopathic software where "sorry for your loss" is considered a feature, not a bug. Nonstandard hand-rolled transaction? Fuck you, you deserve to get robbed.

throwaway2016a• 9 years ago

Semantically that is problematic. You don't know who the person who successfully mines the transaction is going to be so there is technical no "output" to give it to until the block is mined.

Perhaps an extra header field with the fee amount that needs to match the unspent inputs would work.

Edit: and as another commenter pointed out, if you set the output to someone other than the miner you are doing a 0 fee transaction which is discouraged and in bitcoin, highly unlikely to end up in a block.

samstave4• 9 years ago

ITT it is revealed I know literally nothing of how BTC operates. What is the best way to remove my ignorance?

beardog• 9 years ago

Original Bitcoin whitepaper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Semi-official Bitcoin wiki: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page

avaer• 9 years ago

The best? Write your own blockchain; speaking from experience.

The easiest? Read https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/.

sharemywin• 9 years ago

alas, still google...

wmf5• 9 years ago

http://www.righto.com/2014/02/bitcoins-hard-way-using-raw-bi...

ftk• 9 years ago

Check out this awesome video by 3Blue1Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4

SilasX• 9 years ago

Related true story: I wrote a free e-book about Bitcoin[1], and Bitcoin dev lead Gavin Andresen wanted to send a donation as thanks. He apparently meant to send $10, but sent 10 BTC by accident. (worth $3,000 at the time, now worth $25,000)

He emailed me and my co author asking (very politely!) for us to send it back, which we did (minus some amount to make it come out to the intended donation).

You can see the transactions here: https://blockchain.info/address/19QsxWwNyeQ9NceaXZFXkHSHbdKC...

(And verify that address matches up with the donation address on the site).

[1] http://understandingbitcoin.us

mtgx• 9 years ago

These sort of UX issues will have to be resolved before cryptocurrencies become "mainstream". It wouldn't be seen as acceptable by mom and pop to "accidentally" send thousands of dollars to a store for a pack of cigarettes. However, I do think we'll start to see some fixes for this in a few years, hopefully without increased centralization (like the DNS system).

colordrops• 9 years ago

It happens with cash too though. Sometimes you hand over a 20 when you meant to hand over a 1. To be fair though US cash does have some UX issues, with the same size and similar coloring.

matthewbauer2• 9 years ago

Even with perfect UX, these kind of "user errors" will still happen. I wonder if there is any recourse available? So far it seems like you can either hope the person on the other end will give you something back (unlikely) or convince the entire Bitcoin chain to fork to void your transaction (even less likely).

DanBC• 9 years ago

"Fat Finger" errors are reasonably common.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat-finger_error

ditonal• 9 years ago

There was a recent thread in r/Bitcoin about someone missing a 200k deposit on Coinbase. With the quote "say what you will about the banks, at least you can get on the phone with them." These super anti banking activists want banks when shit really hits the fan, surprise surprise.

BTC will never be a currency for anything legal. Anyone telling you otherwise is pumping so they can eventually dump. Regulations, inflation, etc these are all features, , not bugs. None of the Bitcoin true believers want to spend theirs which is exactly the problem with deflation.

Maybe it can be a store of value. Maybe. It's primarily a Ponzi scheme and a way to buy drugs.

snakeanus3• 9 years ago

BTC will never be a currency for anything legal

It is actually already quite common for many legal internet-based services.

SippinLean• 9 years ago

A Ponzi scheme would be impossible, no coinholders are paid dividends. Perhaps you just meant "scheme".

LyndsySimon2• 9 years ago

These super anti banking activists want banks when shit really hits the fan, surprise surprise.

Not all Bitcoiners are "super anti-banking activists".

BTC will never be a currency for anything legal.

It already is.

uncletaco2• 9 years ago

I just bought parts for my PC on Newegg and paid fot everything in Bitcoin.

warsharks• 9 years ago

are you writing this from a timewarp and youre stuck in 2012? i have personally bought loads of stuff with BTC ranging from coffee to headphones to international flights and hotel bookings.

its also a pretty flawed comment when its already accepted on something as huge as steam, and at places like CEX, BIC camera and a growing list of other retailers.

and you say none of the true believers want to spend theirs, im sorry but youre wrong there too, ive been heavily into bitcoin since about 2011, but ive always been of the belief that if nobody uses them then they will never become a currency so i always spent mine (if id saved even 10% of what ive mined id be a millionaire by now but c'est la vie) im certain i am not the only person who shares this belief.

em3rgent0rdr• 9 years ago

you can still have bands and services ontop of bitcoin which allow refunds. Bitcoin is just like hard cash in that the transactions themselves are non-refundable.

dk89966• 9 years ago

If only there was a technology that can provide low fees and fast tx. *sarcasm

sswaner• 9 years ago

Is it possible that this is a scheme designed to draw a specific miner out of his/her anonymity?

krallja3• 9 years ago

The bitcoin ledger is public, so the miner fee information for this transaction should be verifiable in private before the spender decides to deanonymize themselves.

notheguyouthink2• 9 years ago

What's a likely solution here? I'm perplexed on how they can do anything to help this transaction fee, without just giving money away.

Thoughts?

matthew-wegner• 9 years ago

They said they were the ones who mined the block, so they have all the transaction fees in that block (in addition the new Bitcoin created)...

notheguyouthink2• 9 years ago

Ah hah, this makes much more sense. Thank you.

I thought the money evaporated.

55555• 9 years ago

They are giving the money away. Roughly $195,000 USD.

matthewbauer2• 9 years ago

Is that really worth the good PR for them? It seems almost ridiculous if it was not BTC.com's mistake to begin with.

oh_sigh• 9 years ago

They mined the block, so they got to keep the btc. They're going to send it back to the person once they verify their identity. Hopefully that person does t destroy their keys when they're done.

snakeanus3• 9 years ago

How can they help exactly? Who gets these fees?

krallja3• 9 years ago

BTC.com got the fee, because they mined the block.

Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact us for a refund

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