Earlier today Sparkpool a crypto mining pool announced that it had frozen a mysterious 2,100 ETH payment it had received as block reward. What made the pool suspicious was the size of the payout after mining just one block which represents close to 600 times the standard network’s block reward. Now the mining pool has said that it will await the sender to reach out.

The Sparkpool payout was probably because of a programming error

The company has notified its pool of miners that it will hold the ETH currently worth around $300,000 until it gains clarity on the payout.

In a statement issued today the company said:

“Sparkpool has recently mined a block with a 2100 ETH mining reward, which was an anomaly that triggered our internal emergency mechanism,” the company said in a statement. “We have temporarily frozen this fee and are now waiting for the sender to contact us for a solution. If the sender does not reach out in the next a few days, Sparkpool will then allocate the fees to miners who are entitled to the reward.”

Speaking to CoinDesk, Xin Xu the CEO of the company noted that they had to hold the funds given the amounts involved and the pool’s miners and users understand the decision.

He added:

“Unfortunately, and fortunately, blockchain is so far not completely run by machines; human are still involved. So we have an opportunity to correct the problem. Integrity is our pool’s priority.”

The ETH payout was awarded after Sparkpool mined block number 7,238,290. So far there have been a number of suggestions on what could have been the cause of the massive payout from money laundry to goodwill from anonymous supporters.

However, according to an analysis that was conducted by Amberdata, a blockchain analytics site, the abnormal payout may have been the result of an automated bot that went wrong.

What’s your take on Sparkpool freezing the 2,100 ETH payout? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.