Austria-based Ethereum (ETH) development studio Bitfly, that operates the Ethermine Ethereum (ETH) mining pool, has explained their decision on the fate of a fee from the record books.
No more time to wait
According to the official statement from Bitfly, they waited for a response from the mysterious sender for four days. However, nobody managed to prove they were the one behind the transaction.
Bitfly highlighted that 'given the amount involved' they delayed its dissemination to wait for a response from the sender. Within this period, the Bitfly team was contacted by numerous Ethereans but all of them failed to show the valid signature of the sending account (0xcDd6a2b9DD3e386C8cd4a7ada5cab2F1c561182D).
Thus, all of the money will be divided between the miners of Block 10241999, which was added to the Ethereum (ETH) main chain on June 11th, 2020 at 06:30 AM UTC.
Additionally, Bitfly emphasized that such behavior shouldn't be treated as a precedent. The team has no plans to interfere in the transaction fee payout to miners anymore. So, the next huge fee, should it be sent, will be disseminated between the lucky miners with no additional notification or delay.
Community responds
Despite this behavior of Bitfly being a rare example of 'fair play' in the decentralized segment, some speakers from the Ethereum (ETH) community suggest that miners could wait a bit longer.
E.g. Lefteris Karapetsas, the founder of Rotki decentralized portfolio tracker, recommended waiting for an extra week or two since last weekend was a bank holiday in Catholic European countries. However, he admitted that the final resolution is up to Bitfly and their decision to give a chance to the sender is fair.
Bitfly commented that, considering the enormous coverage in media outlets and social networks, they are treating this 'pause' of four days as sufficient.
Furthermore, they avoid entering into commitments related to the arbitrage of Ethereum (ETH) network transactions.