Ethereum Miner Returns ‘Erroneously High’ $22 Million Gas Fee to Bitfinex’s Wallet

Yesterday, a transaction stemming from a crypto wallet attached to the exchange Bitfinex mistakenly paid a fee of around $22.3 million, or 7,626 Ethereum, for a $100,000 transaction. 

Shortly after, the mining pool has returned the erroneous fee back to Bitfinex’s wallet via three transactions of 1 ETH, 7,385 ETH, and 240 ETH, respectively.

While the mining pool that received the enormous gas fee is anonymous, it is currently ranked 9th among the largest Ethereum miners and is responsible for roughly 3.1% of the network’s hash rate, according to Etherscan.

“Thank you to the miner of block 13307440 who we can confirm is returning 7,626 ETH that were incorrectly paid today as a tx fee,” decentralized crypto exchange (DEX) DeversiFi tweeted.

The blockchain is immutable.

But the revolution we are part of is defined by our values as humans.⁰⁰

Thank you to the miner of block 13307440 who we can confirm is returning 7626 ETH that were incorrectly paid today as a tx fee.

A post mortem will follow tomorrow. https://t.co/FqkEZ9DK8P

— DeversiFi (@deversifi) September 27, 2021

DeversiFi was previously known as Ethfinex, a sister exchange of crypto trading platform Bitfinex. In 2019, the two firms parted company via a “management buyout” and Ethfinex was rebranded into DeversiFi. Notably, the three co-founders of the DEX also worked at Bitfinex in the past, as per Bloomberg.

The connection doesn’t stop there, however. 

Due to yesterday’s events, it has now become clear that the DEX also has access to at least one of Bitfinex’s crypto wallets to help subside transaction costs for users.

“At 11:10 UTC on the 27th September a deposit transaction was made using a hardware wallet from the main DeversiFi user interface with an erroneously high gas fee,” the DEX later acknowledged on Twitter.

At 11:10 UTC on the 27th September a deposit transaction was made using a hardware wallet from the main DeversiFi user interface with an erroneously high gas fee.https://t.co/OpSHkkFiBo

— DeversiFi (@deversifi) September 27, 2021

A spokesperson for Bitfinex also confirmed to Decrypt that the transaction in question “belongs to DeversiFi.”

“This transaction was a transaction to deposit funds on the DeversiFi L2 solution. These transactions are extremely rare and third-party companies cover the costs of such integrations. DeversiFi confirmed that they will take care of it,” a Bitfinex representative told Decrypt.