Did This User Just Pay $15,000 In Fees For A 0.15 XRP Transaction?

In a rare occurrence, the XRP community is grappling with a recent transaction that has raised eyebrows and concerns about network security. 

A user reportedly paid an astonishing 26,000 XRP (worth approximately $15,000) in fees for a mere 0.15 XRP transaction, sparking discussions about the safety and reliability of the XRP Ledger.

The incident came to light when XRPL validator “Vet-XO” shared his findings on X (formerly Twitter) after conducting an advanced search feature on XRPSCAN, the leading explorer for the XRP Ledger.

“2 Weeks ago, someone paid accidentally ~26k XRP in fees for a 0.15 XRP Payment. Found via the advanced search of XRPScan,” Vet-XO tweeted on Sep. 16.

The news quickly rippled through the XRP community, with many members expressing concern about the platform’s security.

“How is this even possible? Like how would this happen?? More importantly, how do we avoid such a thing in the future, or what do we watch for?” one community member asked. 

Addressing these concerns, the pundit clarified the situation, assuring regular XRP users that such incidents are not typical and are unlikely to affect those using standard wallet applications.

“It was pretty sure a dev and his script that bugged out, bad code,” he explained. “This can’t happen to you if you use Crossmark / Xaman or Coinbase, for example.” 

When pressed further about how to prevent such occurrences in the future, Vet-XO reiterated that normal users of apps like Xaman are not at risk of falling victim to such errors. He further suggested that the incident was likely caused by a developer or a poorly designed website, rather than a flaw in the XRP Ledger itself.

While this type of transaction fee error is uncommon for XRP, similar incidents have occurred on other blockchain networks. Notably, Ethereum and Bitcoin have seen cases of users overpaying transaction fees due to various factors, including network congestion, user error, or faulty scripts.

For instance, early last month, an Ethereum user accidentally paid over 34 ETH (approximately $92,504) in gas fees to transfer less than 1 ETH. This represented an overpayment of nearly 2,000,000% compared to the average transaction cost at the time. 

To address such issues, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has previously proposed EIP-4844, introducing “blob-carrying transactions” to reduce data processing on the main network. This aims to lower fees and improve scalability without compromising security.

Similarly, in November 2023, a Bitcoin sender mistakenly paid $3 million in transaction fees for a single transfer, setting a new record in Bitcoin’s history.