According to data from ycharts.com, the average transaction fee on the blockchain network was $2.176 at the time of writing. This means that the user paid an exorbitant fee that was more than 480,000 times higher than necessary, making it the highest fee ever recorded on the Bitcoin network.
Jameson Loop, co-founder of CasaHODL, conducted an analysis of the incident and suggested that the error may have been caused by faulty software from an exchange or payment processor address.
Loop explained that the address in question has been involved in over 60,000 transactions and likely made a mistake in calculating the change output, resulting in the erroneous transaction fee.
He further added that the address appears to be a withdraw-only hot wallet belonging to an enterprise. Its typical activity involves receiving deposits from a specific address to replenish its balance periodically.
According to Chun Wang, co-founder of F2Pool, the 20 BTC fees will be held temporarily. The user who made the transaction has a three-day opportunity to claim these fees. In the event that no one comes forward to claim them, the fees will be redistributed among the miners.
This decision has been made in order to handle the unclaimed fees in a fair and equitable manner.
Interestingly, it seems that the user has not yet realized the error, as they are still sending transactions from the same wallet.