Sparkpool Ether Mining Pool Gets a 2,000 ETH Payment for Mining One Block on Ethereum

Crypto mining is necessary to the scalability of the blockchain, as it is necessary to the posting of various transactions.

For the Ethereum blockchain, the current reward is 3 ETH for each block posted, which is why many eyebrows were raised upon seeing a payout of 2,000 ETH on a single block mined by Sparkpool. Presently, with the value of ETH, that payout would be around $300,000, which is around 600 times the typical reward that miners receive.

Even if the small payout used as an incentive to mine is factored in, the amount received for this one block is outrageous. Considering that there are only 210 validated transactions by Sparkpool, the current payout was 2,103.1485 ETH at block 7,238,290. This information was verified through Blockscout, the Ethereum block explorer.

Jimmy Zhong, the co-founder of the IOST dApp platform, pointed out on Twitter that the payout could be no more than a fluke, with at least one user accidentally posting high transaction fees on their payments.

However, it is just as likely that this reward came as an anonymous contribution to the mining community. With all of the contention over the new proposal regarding the types of mining chips that could be use, this could be just a random act of kindness.

More weary individuals believe that the act was not unintentional or altruistic, but a way for someone to “wash” money in the blockchain. Basically, they suggest that the reward itself was illegally obtained.

Considering the way that mistakes have been made in the industry in the past, the idea that this was just the result of human error is probably the most realistic. In the summer of 2014, a user accidentally performed a 38-bitcoin transaction with 30 bitcoins as the transaction fee, which was just a result of typing the wrong numbers.

Unfortunately, even with the changes in UX, this error is fairly common.

Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP (Ripple), and EOS Price Analysis Watch (Feb 19th)