The transaction took place on Thursday, May 23rd, and was mined by the China-based mining pool LTC.top in block 1636831.
The fee was so massive that it caused the average transaction fee on the Litecoin network to jump from $0.05 to $0.70. Transaction fees haven’t been that high since Litecoin was worth $400 a pop at the end of December 2017.
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Cryptoglobe theorized that the address that sent the transaction most likely belongs to a crypto business due to its high balance (322.6 LTC and) and high transaction volume (more than 2500 transactions since the address’ creation last year.)
A Clever Method of Money Laundering?
A number of theories have spawned on social media as to what could have led the wallet to pay such a ridiculously high fee.
The simplest explanation is just human error–someone set the fee too high and paid it before noticing.
However, other members of the crypto community have speculated that the high transaction fee could be an attempt at money laundering or “washing” coins (exchanging coins associated with nefarious activity.)