In January 2026, several automated bots spent about $4,800 in transaction fees to recover $12.67 in Bitcoin sent to a compromised address. The funds came from two deposits of 0.00018209 and 0,00002096 BTC, which were swept within minutes through competing transactions using the replace-by-fee mechanism. The SegWit address’s private key could be derived from the identifier of a Bitcoin block’s coinbase transaction, making it vulnerable. Miners ultimately collected most of the fees, illustrating an extremely unfavorable cost-to-reward ratio for bot operators.
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