Multi-Million Ethereum Transfer Fees a Result of Extortion Claim Researchers

The events of the last seven days left the cryptocurrency community bemused as three small Ethereum transactions attracted a transfer fee of millions of dollars. However, recent reports shed light on the sketchy multi-million ethereum transfer fees with the China-based blockchain analysis firm, PeckShield, deducing that transactions might have been a blackmail attempt.

PeckShield analysis firm found out that the multi-million Ethereum transfer fees have been paid by cyber criminals demanding a ransom from a digital currency exchange site, according to a Chainnews report on June 12. The report suggests that the crypto exchange was targeted by phishing, which authorized the hack

Applying multi-sig restrictions blocked the attackers from clearing their wallets of the platform ‘s assets. But they managed to initiate transfers to the whitelist addresses and determine the gas fee for each of the transactions reported. As such, the blockchain analysis firm believes that if attackers do not pay the ransom, they threaten to clear the firm’s assets.

According to PeckShield, 21,000 ETH is left in the hacker-controlled wallet address. The initial transfer involving multi-million ethereum transfer fees took place on june 10, incurring a huge gas fee of $2.6 million to move just 0.55 ETH. The second sketchy transfer took place 24 hours later.

Different theories raised regarding the multi-million ethereum transfer fees

One day after the second transaction a third unnerving transaction was processed by the Ethereum Network. This time around, it was from a different account, which included a 3221 ETH transaction for a whopping 2,310 ETH transfer fee.

The three multi-million ethereum transaction fees raised various hypotheses from the cryptocurrency community. Yes, some say that the transactions result from vengeance from a former crypto exchange employee, fat-fingered human error; or even a bug in a money laundry bot