One previously unknown Bitcoin holder paid a disproportionate transaction fee — 4 BTC ($172,000). This was reported by the Whale Alert service, which monitors large cryptocurrency transactions.
The amount of the transaction itself was 2.9 BTC. This means that the commission amounted to 133% of the value of the sent cryptocurrency and was almost 30,000 times higher than the average commission on the network. The user could simply have made a mistake, or, for example, was involved in money laundering.
Currently, the average commission on the Bitcoin network is approximately $11.35. In December, this figure was higher due to a surge in activity and reached $37. The change in commissions is also affected by the exchange rate of the first cryptocurrency — now the price of BTC is fluctuating on the approaches to the maximum of the last year and a half.
Commission is a fee that users pay to miners for processing transactions and confirming transfers to various addresses. The speed of transaction processing depends on the size of the commission. Transactions are typically completed within an hour, but during periods of increased network activity they can take tens of hours or even days.
In November, an unknown user sent $2.1 million worth of bitcoins, indicating a fee of $3.1 million. According to a Blockchair observer, 139.42 BTC ($5.2 million) were stored in the user's wallet before the erroneous transaction was made. He made a transfer of 55.77 BTC ($2.1 million), and set the commission amount to the remaining 83.65 BTC ($3.1 million). This is approximately 120,500 times more than the then average commission on the network.