Continuing the spate of ‘fat fingering’ mishaps, a Bitcoin user accidentally sent 0.0002 BTC with a transaction fee of more than 1.99 BTC on Monday, highlighting the growing need for some sort of safety mechanism in the sending process.

Last month, BitcoinerX reported on a series of Ethereum transactions carrying exorbitant transaction fees. The five transactions – all originating from the same address – added up to just 0.17 ETH but included transaction fees totaling approximately 3,990 ETH. In dollar amounts, the user paid over $575,000 to send less than $25 worth of ETH.

Speculation as to how and why the transactions occurred ran rampant on social media, with everything from money laundering to “fat fingered” developer error being the cause.

Now the fat finger struck again, albeit this time on the Bitcoin blockchain. Just after 3:30 pm on Monday, someone sent 0.0002 BTC ($0.77) over the network with a staggering transaction fee of 1.99555451 BTC ($7,720.51).

The transaction is one of just two associated with the Bitcoin address. The first was an incoming transaction a few hours earlier for 1.99576 BTC. There is no indication that there was any illicit intent behind the transaction, so for right now the assumption is that it was simply user error.

‘Fat Finger’ Points Out Flaw in Crypto Ecosystem

Assuming that this is an actual case of ‘fat fingering’ (do NOT search for this on Google Images – you have been warned), this incident – and others like it – highlights a serious problem in the way in which we send cryptocurrencies from wallets. If these kinds of mistakes can be made by seasoned crypto users and developers, what are the chances of a new user making a similar mistake?

I can’t even close Microsoft Word without an alert popping up asking me if I want to save my work before I shut down, yet I can send large sums of cryptocurrency – worth thousands or even millions of dollars – over the blockchain with nary an alert to be found.

The fact that this can happen is just one more hurdle standing in the way of mainstream adoption, in my opinion.

Some sort of failsafe protocol needs to be implemented that checks the average transaction fee of the last X number of transactions on the blockchain. If the transaction fee per byte for the current transaction is a certain percentage higher (or lower) than the average, then it would trigger an alert prompting the user to check their transaction fee.

If that is too complicated or time-consuming to implement, at the very least, a general ‘check your transaction and transaction fee amounts to make sure they are correct’ alert should be in place:

Me: enters transaction amount, sets fee, hits SEND Wallet: (ALERT) Are you sure you want to send X bitcoin for X transaction fee? Yes / No Me: Yes Wallet: Transaction sent

If we want average, everyday folks to be able to use cryptocurrencies on a day-to-day basis, then the mechanism to send/receive payments needs to be simple and as foolproof as possible.

Do you think that this was just a case of ‘fat fingering’? Can you think of other ways to safeguard the crypto payment process? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Blockchain.com, DepositPhotos