Normally, a transaction from Ethereum in the ETH block chain costs the equivalent of less than USD 0.50. But on Wednesday, a broadcaster offered 2.6 million US dollars and this was promptly “debited”. What was going on there?
In the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem, a so-called gas price is demanded for transactions. As far as okay, this is also the case with other cryptocurrencies and the daily prices for fees are calculated on the free market. Those who prefer their transfer and therefore want to see it validated faster in the block chain, offer a slightly higher price than the current average. But to pay the equivalent of 2.6 million US dollars in Ethereum to transfer 133 US dollars in ETH from one account to another? Sounds crazy, but it happened yesterday, Wednesday. Here is the transaction in question:
This can happen if, for example, the input fields for the amount to be transferred in ETH and the maximum amount for the gas price are accidentally mixed up. This time the Mining Pool Spark Pool noticed the strange process. From a technological point of view, the paid gas price is located in one of the new blocks that are produced in the block chain at Ethereum. Whoever unravels and validates which block in each case, however, is distributed randomly. In this respect, it can be ruled out that the “generous” sender had a receiver in mind for his completely overdrawn Gas Price. In the meantime, Spark Pool is considering what to do with the unexpected profit. Should it really be divided among the members of the Mining Pool, as actually intended? Spark Pool is still holding back the fees they collected and apparently trying to contact the station. But this is immediately noticeable again, here is a transaction from this Thursday:
What is clear is that the station is one of the whales, because before it started various activities yesterday, its account was filled with well over 10 million US dollars in Ethereum. But if he continues like this and offers gas prices that have nothing in common with normal practice, his wealth will soon be exhausted. For the time being, he can only hope for goodwill from the miners who have received the gifts. Because the principle of a decentralized block chain also applies to Ethereum: once a transaction has been validated, it cannot be “booked back”. By the way, Spark Pool has already had experience with such conspicuous gas prices. In February 2019, Spark Pool received 300,000 US dollars as the gas price for a single transfer.
Conclusion: “Too bad” and how you prevent this
The lesson from this bizarre mishap is simple: Concentrate as you organize your crypto currencies and trade them. A simple typo can cost a lot of real money and it’s not like a bank where a phone call or chargeback can quickly correct a mistake.
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