Bitcoin User Claims Ownership of Hacked Funds in Record-Breaking Fee Transaction Involving Miner AntPool

A Bitcoin user claimed ownership of funds involved in a historic transaction, alleging they were hacked. This incident, involving miner AntPool receiving over 83 BTC in transaction fees, marks the highest Bitcoin fee for a single transaction to date. On November 24, an anonymous user, under the handle “@83_5BTC,” stated they inadvertently paid 83.5 BTC in fees while setting up a new cold wallet. The user speculated that a hacker used an automated script to hijack their transaction, resulting in a fee estimated at $3.1 million.

Crypto.news reported the event a day earlier, mentioning a transaction of 139.4 BTC mined by AntPool. The user claiming ownership explained they were transferring 139 BTC to a new cold wallet, which was then immediately redirected to another wallet, suggesting a script-based interference with an unusual fee calculation.

The user “@83_5BTC” backed their claim with a signed on-chain message from the alleged compromised wallet, stating they owned the funds. Jameson Lopp, co-founder and CTO of digital asset security firm Casa, and Mononaut, creator of Bitcoin explorer Mempool, confirmed the message’s authenticity. However, Mononaut noted that the signature could belong to either the attacker or the victim, meaning AntPool must use other verification methods.

This incident dethroned Paxos, which previously held the record for the highest Bitcoin transaction fee at around $500,000, a result of an error. The miner F2Pool, which collected this fee, returned the overpayment to Paxos. As of the report, it was unclear if AntPool planned to return the funds in question or how it intended to verify the identity of the self-declared victim.

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