By
Temitope Olatunji
April 18th, 2024
In a highly controversial transaction, Bitfinex ended up paying a staggering 7,676 ETH for transferring just $100K worth of USDT. The miner of the block, however, has confirmed to return the transaction fee amount.
Crypto exchange Bitfinex is in the spotlight once again with its USDT transactions. On Monday, September 27, the crypto exchange paid 7,676 ETH or a staggering $23.7 million for sending $100K worth of Tether (USDT) stablecoin to the layer-2 subsidiary platform DeversiFi.
This could also possibly be the largest gas fee paid on the Ethereum blockchain network. Data from Etherscan shows that the deposit transaction happened on Monday morning via Bitfinex’s second-largest wallet.
DeversiFi is a decentralized exchange (DEX) incubated by Bitfinex. The USDT transferred was suppose to arrive in the Bitfinex wallet. However, it was kind of a smart contract interaction with the USDT first sent to another wallet before moving it to DeversiFi’s wallet.
The transaction happened through the recently implemented EIP-1559 protocol with the London hardfork. Thus, a total of 0.053% worth of ETH was burned during it. DeversiFi issued a statement stating that they have launched an investigation into the matter. The official message from the platform reads:
“DeversiFi is currently investigating the cause to determine how this occurred and will keep you updated. No customer funds on DeversiFi are at risk and this is an internal issue for DeversiFi to resolve. Operations are unaffected.”
Bitfinex Issues Clarification, DeversiFi Confirms Fee Reversal
Soon after DeversiFi reported this incident, Bitfinex issued a clarification regarding the same. The crypto exchange noted that it will not entirely bear the burden of this transaction fee. The crypto exchange said:
“In transactions such as these, the fees are shouldered by third party integrations with Bitfinex. This has also been confirmed by DeversiFi in their recent statement. We look forward to DeversiFi’s investigation and to their having this matter sorted on their side.”
Soon after the incident happened, DeversiFi reached out to the moner of the particular block that processed the transaction. The decentralized exchange has released an official update regarding the same.
“The blockchain is immutable. But the revolution we are part of is defined by our values as humans. Thank you to the miner of block 13307440 who we can confirm is returning 7626 ETH that were incorrectly paid today as a tx fee. A post mortem will follow tomorrow,” added the company.