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A Bitcoin transaction confirmed on August 12 paid 1.60 BTC in network fees—worth roughly $102,778—and delivered zero coins to anyone. The sender's automated script used Replace-by-Fee to bump the fee once per second until it consumed the entire input. SpiderPool mined the block and pocketed the windfall.

How the fee ran away

The sender ran an automated script that used Replace-by-Fee to bump fees, raising the bid once per second until it swallowed the entire input. The final version of the transaction left nothing for the recipient, so the payment landed at zero. Bitcoin nodes accepted it because the protocol doesn't cap fees. The transaction had a single input of 160,343,885 satoshis—about 1.6 BTC—and that entire amount went to fees.

A timely windfall for SpiderPool

SpiderPool mined block 962,142 and collected the fees. Across that block, fees totaled about 1.82 BTC, meaning this single error supplied 88% of them. The timing is fortunate: Bitcoin miners have seen revenue slump, with miners leaving the network at a record pace. A former leader of mining pools filed for bankruptcy in July, making the windfall timely for pools.

How to avoid a runaway fee

Three settings can prevent this kind of mistake: switch off automatic RBF bumping, set a hard fee ceiling, and send a test payment. The episode echoes the Coldcard wallet hack, where victims lost everything despite good practice. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao argued that no wallet is bulletproof.

The transaction is now permanent on the blockchain, and the fee is unrecoverable. Whether the sender will adjust their script settings remains an open question.