
Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact us for a refund - Sujan
https://blog.btc.com/accidentally-pay-an-80btc-transaction-fee-please-contact-us-for-a-refund-b9f8bb4ff65a
======
SilasX
Related true story: I wrote a free e-book about Bitcoin[1], and Bitcoin dev
lead Gavin Andresen wanted to send a donation as thanks. He apparently meant
to send $10, but sent 10 BTC by accident. (worth $3,000 at the time, now worth
$25,000)

He emailed me and my co author asking (very politely!) for us to send it back,
which we did (minus some amount to make it come out to the intended donation).

You can see the transactions here:
[https://blockchain.info/address/19QsxWwNyeQ9NceaXZFXkHSHbdKC...](https://blockchain.info/address/19QsxWwNyeQ9NceaXZFXkHSHbdKCibjYKR)

(And verify that address matches up with the donation address on the site).

[1] [http://understandingbitcoin.us](http://understandingbitcoin.us)

~~~
ditonal
There was a recent thread in r/Bitcoin about someone missing a 200k deposit on
Coinbase. With the quote "say what you will about the banks, at least you can
get on the phone with them." These super anti banking activists want banks
when shit really hits the fan, surprise surprise.

BTC will never be a currency for anything legal. Anyone telling you otherwise
is pumping so they can eventually dump. Regulations, inflation, etc these are
all features, , not bugs. None of the Bitcoin true believers want to spend
theirs which is exactly the problem with deflation.

Maybe it can be a store of value. Maybe. It's primarily a Ponzi scheme and a
way to buy drugs.

~~~
snakeanus
> BTC will never be a currency for anything legal

It is actually already quite common for many legal internet-based services.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Such as, for instance, pornography.

Privacy issues aside, many people don't trust porn sites. Bitcoin enables them
to pay with absolutely zero chance of them being stuck with a recurring
subscription.

------
mootothemax
_the correct fee should have been approximately 2BTC._

At current rates isn't that a $5,000ish transaction fee?

Have I misunderstood something? That seems like a crazy amount, especially
given the hype surrounding Bitcoin.

~~~
dk8996
I am with you on this one. BTC is supposed to solve the problems current
systems have, the key ones being; high tx fees and slow tx.

~~~
dreamdu5t
It was never intended to solve that. As described by the bitcoin paper, it
solves the problem of decentralized cryptocurrency which is minting and
preventing double-spending without a central authority.

~~~
cortesoft
But 'not having a central authority' is only valuable if the alternative
solves the problems that having a central authority causes. The main problems
I have heard articulated about a central authority is that they have high
costs, are slow, and can block transactions or withold funds with no recourse.
Bitcoin doesn't solve the first two issues; does it really solve the third,
either? Maybe, but there are also a host of NEW issues that it brings up, too.

~~~
mbrock
On the contrary, centrally authorized systems can be extremely fast and cheap.
Postgres outperforms any blockchain. The issues are about authority and power,
and also the barriers to innovation and access which that power imposes.

Payment channels can solve scaling issues in blockchains just like various
settlement layers solve the slowness of bank transfers. Some people don't want
such a solution, but it's still a solution.

Development doesn't happen the way we want. Some people want cryptocurrencies
to stop existing, which seems unlikely. Bitcoin's development is really thorny
because of diverse interests and general incentivized hostility; that's just
reality.

Maybe a faster blockchain will gradually take Bitcoin's market share. Maybe
Bitcoin will remain quite valuable. If you know a certain answer to this,
there are large profit opportunities!

------
abrkn
This happens when someone manually crafts a transaction.

In Bitcoin, if you have an input of 100 BTC and make a transaction with a
single output of 20 BTC, the remaining 80 BTC are kept by the miner. There's
no wallet software that would let you do this.

It's like paying a $20 check with a $100 bill and saying "keep the change."

~~~
jstanley
More like paying a $20 bill with a $100 note and _not_ saying " _don 't_ keep
the change"!

------
aphextron
No explanation? How is it even possible for something like this to happen?

~~~
krallja
Like a check, you can write whatever value you want in the "Amount" box.

~~~
mhluongo
Most wallets estimate fees based on transaction size, so this did require a
particular wallet or using an "advanced setting"

~~~
mikeash
Or a bug. In any case, since this post is from the recipient of the fee, they
probably have no way of knowing how it happened. At least, not until and
unless the person who paid it comes forward.

------
wmf
There is a way to mostly prevent these errors BTW: Change the transaction
format so that the sum of input values must equal the sum of output values
(edit: including a special fee output which should only be ~8 bytes); this
would prevent money from being "lost" as fees. If someone is planning to
change the transaction format anyway (ahem) maybe they could also add this
safety feature.

~~~
zwily
That would eliminate fees entirely as well, unless you're proposing an
additional "fee" output. That would take additional space, which means it
won't flow as space is at a premium. I don't know of any wallet software that
would let someone do this, so this must have been a manually-created
transaction.

~~~
wmf
If only there was some way to increase the space available for transactions!

But your overall point is well taken: Bitcoin is sociopathic software where
"sorry for your loss" is considered a feature, not a bug. Nonstandard hand-
rolled transaction? Fuck you, you deserve to get robbed.

~~~
zwily
> If only there was some way to increase the space available for transactions!

Hehe.

> But your overall point is well taken: Bitcoin is sociopathic software where
> "sorry for your loss" is considered a feature, not a bug. Nonstandard hand-
> rolled transaction? Fuck you, you deserve to get robbed.

Well except, in this case, the miner is offering to give the fee back. In
general, you're right though. :)

------
sswaner
Is it possible that this is a scheme designed to draw a specific miner out of
his/her anonymity?

~~~
krallja
The bitcoin ledger is public, so the miner fee information for this
transaction should be verifiable in private before the spender decides to
deanonymize themselves.

------
notheguyouthink
What's a likely solution here? I'm perplexed on how they can do anything to
help this transaction fee, without just giving money away.

Thoughts?

~~~
55555
They are giving the money away. Roughly $195,000 USD.

~~~
matthewbauer
Is that really worth the good PR for them? It seems almost ridiculous if it
was not BTC.com's mistake to begin with.

------
woah
The correct fee should have been 2BTC?

~~~
jldugger
I think it's supposed to be approx 10-20 satoshis at the moment.

~~~
mhluongo
Actually, they're based on tx size. Fees are estimates as satoshis/byte. 10-20
satoshis is incredibly cheap

~~~
jldugger
Ah right. Thanks for jogging my memory; been a while since I last researched
this for an online debate about bitcoin ^_^

Looks like the top of the txn queue is 330 satoshis per byte, so for an
average size txn of 226 bytes, you're paying 75k satoshis, or about 2 bucks!
(according to bitcoinfees.21.co)

------
samstave
ITT it is revealed I know literally nothing of how BTC operates. What is the
best way to remove my ignorance?

~~~
avaer
The best? Write your own blockchain; speaking from experience.

The easiest? Read [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/).

------
dk8996
If only there was a technology that can provide low fees and fast tx. *sarcasm

------
snakeanus
How can they help exactly? Who gets these fees?

~~~
krallja
BTC.com got the fee, because they mined the block.

