Foundry Refunds 8.18 BTC in ‘Inadvertent’ Bitcoin Transaction Fees

Foundry USA Pool, the largest Bitcoin mining pool by total hashrate, has refunded an inadvertently paid Bitcoin transaction fee of 8.18 BTC, worth approximately $777,000.

On December 19, Foundry USA Pool mined Bitcoin block 875475, which included a transaction where the sender attached a fee of 8.18 BTC—91,127 times higher than what was necessary.

In a social media post on Friday, Foundry stated that it had contacted the sender, who had paid the fee “inadvertently.” The mining pool confirmed that it refunded the transaction fee to the sender “after careful consideration.”

The company further clarified to TheEnergyMag that the refund did not impact its customers or their daily payouts given the pool’s daily payouts are calculated by excluding the three highest and three lowest fee blocks.

“Please note that this decision was made after thorough deliberation, and we will continue to handle such cases on a case-by-case basis,” Foundry added.

This is not the first time a large Bitcoin mining pool refunded unusually high Bitcoin transaction fees due to unintended events. In November 2023, Antpool refunded a single transaction fee of 83.6 BTC, worth $3.1 million at the time.

Currently, Foundry USA Pool aggregates around 280 EH/s of Bitcoin hashrate from mining institutions based in North America, almost twice the size of its closest competitor, Antpool.