A Bitcoin user has inadvertently paid a transaction fee of over $3.1 million, establishing a new record in U.S. dollar terms for a single Bitcoin transaction. This exorbitant fee is more than six times the previous record of a $500,000 fee paid in September.
The costly 
transaction occurred at 9:59 a.m. UTC when the user transferred 55.77 BTC (worth $2.1 million) but paid a staggering 83.65 BTC ($3.1 million) in transaction fees. The pre-transaction balance was 139.42 BTC ($5.2 million), indicating that the user overpaid by an astonishing 120,528 times, as reported by Bitcoin explorer Mempool.
Interestingly, the address responsible for this transaction was activated earlier today. Before the costly error, it had conducted three Bitcoin transactions. The recipient's address is also relatively new, dating back to October 16.
AntPool, a well-known mining pool, mined the transaction in block 818,087. As of now, AntPool has not commented on this incident and has not responded to inquiries for a statement.
In a related note, the previous record of a $500,000 fee paid in September, identified as a mistake by crypto services provider Paxos, was eventually returned. F2Pool, the miner involved in that transaction, agreed to reimburse the fee to Paxos.
The identity behind this latest expensive blunder remains a mystery. It is uncertain whether AntPool will consider a similar reimbursement agreement.
