Bitcoin Script Error Burns 1.77 BTC in Miner Fees

Bitcoin transactions settle without chargebacks, and under the network’s UTXO model, any difference between total inputs and outputs is paid to miners as a fee. If wallet software fails to create the intended payment or change output, the remaining balance can be surrendered to the block’s miner. The episode underscores the risks of automated crypto transfers that lack fee caps, balance checks and pre-broadcast validation.

On Aug. 12, a wallet user’s misconfigured automation script generated four transactions included in Bitcoin block 962,142, converting the entire 1.7715 BTC input balance into miner fees. The loss was valued at about $113,700 at the time. Those transactions accounted for 97.4% of all fees collected in the block, which was mined by SpiderPool, giving the mining pool the full windfall.