A Bitcoin user appears to have accidentally paid nearly 0.75 BTC — about $60,000 at the time — as a transaction fee while attempting to use the replace-by-fee (RBF) function.
The mishap occurred just after midnight UTC on April 8. The user was trying to resend a transaction, modifying both the fee and the destination address. The updated transfer involved sending 0.48 BTC (roughly $37,770) with a 0.2 BTC change output (around $16,357).
According to Anmol Jain, VP of investigations at AMLBot, the original transaction had a modest or default fee attached. The first RBF attempt not only increased the fee but also adjusted the recipient address. However, both of these earlier transactions remain unconfirmed, likely because a third RBF attempt — with a significantly higher fee — replaced them in the mempool. This final transaction mirrored the second one’s output, suggesting the sender was attempting to prioritize confirmation by offering a premium fee.
Likely an Error in Panic
The entire sequence suggests the sender may have panicked. In a rush to cancel or supersede the original transfer, they may have unintentionally overpaid on the fee. Jain floated a theory:
“It’s possible they meant to input 30.5692 sats, but in haste typed 305,692 sats instead.”
The final transaction even introduced an additional input: an unspent transaction output (UTXO) containing nearly 0.75 BTC. Because the change was improperly handled — likely not setting a correct change address — the wallet treated it as part of the fee.
Jain also pointed out that the mistake could stem from confusion between total fee values and the rate per virtual byte (sat/vB). Or perhaps a misconfigured script or wallet bug caused it. One possible scenario: a user enters “30” thinking it’s 30 sats in total, sees a warning about the fee being too low, and then overcompensates by entering “305000” under the assumption that it’s 30.5 sat/vB. However, the wallet might interpret it as 305,000 sat/vB, which is vastly too high.
RBF: Useful, but Not Without Issues
Replace-by-fee is a Bitcoin feature that lets users update unconfirmed transactions by submitting a new one with a higher fee — a method to outbid one’s own earlier transaction. Since miners prioritize profits, the transaction offering the highest fee is more likely to be included in the next block.
However, because of Bitcoin’s decentralized infrastructure, determining the “first” transaction isn’t always clear-cut. This uncertainty is part of what led to the formal implementation of RBF.
The feature has been controversial. For example, back in 2019, Bitcoin Cash advocate Hayden Otto criticized RBF, claiming it enabled double-spending on Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash ultimately chose to remove RBF entirely and promotes the idea that unconfirmed transactions are final.
Even so, in practice, Bitcoin Cash has seen RBF-like behavior occasionally emerge due to the way blockchain consensus mechanisms work — meaning the feature, while removed in design, can still occur in effect.
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