Executive Summary

This investigation examined five ETH transfer attempts on Ethereum Mainnet between the same sender and recipient. Four attempts failed at the 21,000 gas ceiling, and a fifth attempt succeeded after the sender increased the gas limit to 33,003. The successful transfer consumed 21,055 gas. Etherscan surfaced MetaMask EIP-7702 delegation metadata associated with the recipient address across the observed transactions, and Tenderly traces indicated recipient-side execution during the failed attempts.

The available evidence supports the conclusion that the traditional 21,000 gas heuristic was insufficient under the conditions present for this recipient. The report does not establish the precise mechanism responsible for the additional 55 gas units, but the transaction pattern is consistent with recipient-side behavior associated with the delegation metadata.

Transaction Parties

Role Address

Sender 0x80969F85331acFC7cA2f3b3586B54dE359583839

Recipient / Authority Address 0x215FA41D13E0D374d58A4554eFaE059d1Bd13B43

MetaMask EIP-7702 Delegator surfaced by Etherscan 0x63c0c19a282a1B52b07dD5a65b58948A07DAE32B

Observed Transaction Pattern

Five transfers were identified between the same sender and recipient:

Four consecutive attempts failed at exactly 21,000 gas.

A fifth attempt succeeded after the gas limit was increased to 33,003.

The successful transaction used 21,055 gas.

The successful transaction had nonce 4, confirming it was the fifth submission from the sender.

Representative Failed Transaction

Attribute Value

Transaction Hash 0xcfbfdeb2e907af049805c5944b424febcf8d7ab343c41f7fd3f13ab7858b0c65

Network Ethereum Mainnet

Block 25,334,592

Timestamp Jun-17-2026 03:31:47 AM UTC

Transaction Type Type 0 (Legacy)

Nonce 0

Gas Limit 21,000

Gas Used 21,000 / 21,000

Gas Price 2 Gwei

Value 0.0082237 ETH

Input Data 0x

Status Failed

The other failed attempts shared the same structural characteristics: Type 0 transaction format, empty input data, and full gas exhaustion at 21,000.

Successful Transaction

Attribute Value

Transaction Hash 0x3107a0f3eb2dff2aa37eaf7552527c86171a70227650cfb6543e7c61ee6ae877

Network Ethereum Mainnet

Block 25,334,959

Timestamp Jun-17-2026 04:45:11 AM UTC

Transaction Type Type 0 (Legacy)

Nonce 4

Gas Limit 33,003

Gas Used 21,055

Gas Price 4 Gwei

Value 0.00788 ETH

Input Data 0x

Status Success

Execution Trace Summary

Tenderly traces for the failed attempts indicated that execution progressed into the recipient context rather than stopping at the transaction boundary as would typically be expected for a simple legacy EOA transfer. The final observed opcode before exhaustion was PUSH1, which was not itself the cause of failure but the last instruction observed before gas ran out.

On the successful attempt, the transaction completed normally and consumed 21,055 gas in total.

State Diff Summary for the Successful Transfer

The successful transaction produced an expected state transition:

The recipient balance increased by the transferred amount.

The sender nonce advanced from 4 to 5.

The observed state change was consistent with a normal ETH transfer.

EIP-7702 Context

Etherscan surfaced MetaMask EIP-7702 delegation metadata associated with the recipient account across the observed transactions. That metadata was visible directly on the transaction detail pages. The report does not independently verify the recipient’s code or delegation state at every relevant block, so it does not claim that the exact account state remained unchanged throughout the sequence. It does, however, document that the same recipient address and the same surfaced delegation metadata were present across the observed transaction set.

Root Cause Assessment

Surface Cause

Four consecutive transfers failed at the 21,000 gas ceiling.

Immediate Mechanism

The transaction required more gas than the sender supplied under the conditions present for the recipient address.

Most Defensible Interpretation

The observed transaction pattern is consistent with recipient-side execution associated with an address for which Etherscan surfaced MetaMask EIP-7702 delegation metadata. The successful transfer consumed 21,055 gas, showing that the traditional 21,000 gas heuristic was insufficient in this case.

What the Evidence Does Not Prove

The available evidence does not isolate the exact source of the extra 55 gas units, and it does not prove that delegation metadata alone caused the increase. It supports an association, not a fully proven mechanism.

Alternative Explanations Considered

Conventional EOA-to-EOA transfer behavior

Insufficient as a complete explanation, because the failed transfers exhausted all 21,000 gas and the traces indicated recipient-side execution.

Sender-side execution complexity

Not supported by the trace evidence, which pointed to failure in the recipient context.

Network anomaly

Not evidence of a network anomaly was identified during this investigation. The repeated failure pattern under identical conditions is more consistent with a deterministic cause.

Tooling error

Not supported. Etherscan and Tenderly observations were consistent with each other.

Recipient substitution between attempts

Not indicated by the transaction history. The recipient address remained the same across the observed sequence.

Confidence Assessment

Finding Confidence

Recipient-side execution occurred during failed attempts High

EIP-7702 delegation metadata was associated with the recipient account High

Five sequential attempts were confirmed by nonce progression High

Four transfers failed at 21,000 gas and the fifth succeeded at 21,055 gas High

Increased gas allocation enabled the successful transfer High

Delegated account behavior contributed to the gas deviation Medium

Exact source of the additional 55 gas units Low

Conclusion

This investigation began as an apparent 21,000-gas ETH transfer failure and resolved into a repeatable pattern: four failed transfers at the traditional gas ceiling, followed by a successful fifth transfer after the gas limit was increased. Etherscan surfaced MetaMask EIP-7702 delegation metadata associated with the recipient address, and Tenderly traces showed recipient-side execution during the failures. The successful transfer consumed 21,055 gas, which is above the standard ETH transfer heuristic.

The evidence supports the conclusion that the 21,000 gas assumption was insufficient for this recipient under the conditions observed. The report does not claim the exact mechanism behind the extra gas consumption, only that the transaction behavior is consistent with recipient-side execution associated with the surfaced delegation metadata.

On-Chain Evidence

Etherscan explicitly surfaces the MetaMask EIP-7702 Delegator address (0x63c0c19a282a1B52b07dD5a65b58948A07DAE32B) on the failed transaction detail page, indicating the presence of EIP-7702 delegation metadata on the transaction record at the time it was displayed. The cover image of this article shows this directly — the "Delegated Address" field is visible alongside the 21,000/21,000 gas exhaustion and the [CANCELLED] status.

Note: Independent verification via eth_getCode at the exact block height of each failed transaction is planned for a follow-up.

This investigation was completed using Etherscan transaction data and Tenderly execution traces.