The Ethereum blockchain became host to a series of transactions paying an insane transaction fee to move a small sum of money.
On June 10 a user paid nearly 5.2 million dollars as the transaction fee to move around 87,000 dollars worth of Ethereum. The following day another user paid over 500,000 dollars to move around 750,000 dollars worth of Ethereum. What is the reason behind these transactions; are they the result of human errors or a new method of money laundering.
The same user paid an insane transaction fee twice
As Cryptopolitan previously reported, an Ethereum user paid 10,668 ETH as the transaction fee to move 0.55 ETH on the blockchain. The trade was included in a block mined by SparkPool which ensured that there will be a solution.
However, the situation got complicated when a couple of hours later, the same user moved 350 ETH while paying another 10,668 ETH as its trading fee.
The total sum moved by the transactions was 87,150 dollars while the fee paid for it was over five million dollars.
A “message” by a hacker
A transaction on June 11 moved 3,221 ETH ($751,545) and paid 2,310 ETH ($538,876) as its fee. This transaction was not related to the previously mentioned wallets that make it even more confusing.
While many people speculated that the first two transactions were a whale investor laundering money, the second case might be the work of a hacker.
Dovey Wan the founding partner at Primitive Ventures suggested that the move was a message by a hacker showing that he has taken control of a “certain exchange/wallet/ETH services.”
This might be the most probable reason behind the strange transactions as a ‘bug’ does not explain three suspicious transactions from multiple sources.
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