A second transaction of 350 Ether (ETH) (valued at USD 86,000 at the time of this edition) with an incredible gas rate of USD 2.6 million has just been confirmed in the Ethereum blockchain, less than 24 hours after the first transaction of 0.55 ETH (USD 130 at the time of this edition) was processed with an identical rate amount. Both transactions were processed at a rate of exactly 10,668.73 ETH.

Bithumb shares his opinion on the $2.6 billion transaction at ETH
Transaction details of the second unusual transaction

It’s unlikely to be money laundering

These mysterious transactions have puzzled the community at large, and some suggest that they are money laundering or revenge on a disgruntled exchange employee.

Both transactions originate in the same direction, but the blocks were mined by different miners, which reduces the possibility of the transactions being a means of money laundering or tax evasion.

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An honest mistake?
This transaction went to the Ethermine mining group at ETH in Bitcoin Future, which quickly turned to Twitter in an attempt to reach the sender:

The Bitfly team has said they will work with the sender to resolve the problem, as they believe it was a mistake.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said an update of the protocol, which would reduce the need for manual quotas, should reduce the likelihood of these problems occurring in the future:

„It’s definitely a mistake. I hope that EIP 1559 will greatly reduce the rate of occurrence of things like this by reducing the need for users to try to set tariffs manually.“

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Unbridled speculation
A Twitter user mentioned that the transaction was not transmitted in the same way as Ether’s normal transactions, however this has yet to be confirmed.

Sebastian Bürgel of the privacy company blockchain suggested that the transactions are a mistake in a money laundering bot, due to the regularity of the transactions on the sender’s account.

This second transaction was sent to a different address than the first and in addition to two transactions of about 5 ETH, each 45 days ago, the receiving address has not been used. The 350 ETH are still in the purse at the time of this edition.