Bitcoin User Pays 1.6 BTC Fee Worth $102,778. Don’t Make the Same Mistake

A Bitcoin wallet accidentally burned 1.60 BTC, worth about $102,778, in network fees after an automated Replace-by-Fee loop repeatedly increased the bid until the entire input was consumed. The transaction, confirmed in block 962,142 on August 12, sent zero value to the recipient, with miners capturing the full amount. SpiderPool mined the block and received an outsized fee windfall: the article says this single mistake accounted for about 88% of that block’s 1.82 BTC in fees. The incident highlights the risks of unattended wallet automation and reinforces the need for hard fee caps, manual approval, and test transactions. Despite the loss, BTC’s market price impact was minimal, with Bitcoin trading near $63,770 and down 0.2% on the day.