Foundry USA Pool Returns Bitcoin Transaction Fee After Error

According to Odaily, Foundry USA Pool, the leading Bitcoin mining pool by total hash rate, has refunded a mistakenly paid Bitcoin transaction fee valued at approximately $777,000 (8.18 BTC). On December 19, Foundry USA Pool mined Bitcoin block 875475, which included a transaction with an attached fee 91,127 times higher than necessary. On Friday, Foundry announced on social media that it had contacted the sender who 'unintentionally' paid the fee. The mining pool confirmed that after 'careful consideration,' it decided to return the transaction fee to the sender. Otherwise, the fee would have been distributed among the mining clients contributing hash power to Foundry. Foundry emphasized that this decision was made thoughtfully and stated it would continue to handle such cases individually. This incident is not the first time a major Bitcoin mining pool has refunded an unusually high transaction fee due to an error. In November 2023, Antpool returned a transaction fee of 83.6 BTC, valued at $3.1 million at the time. Currently, Foundry USA Pool's hash rate is approximately 280 EH/s, nearly double that of its closest competitor, Antpool.