Question about multisig wallets

[Rockie1234]

Say you have a multisig wallet set up for a community fund.
What happens if one member falls out with the others, and refuses to sign any requested transactions?
Will everyones donations be stuck there forever? (just a thought)

[ranochigo]

It really depends on the number of signature needed to release the funds and the total possible keys to sign with. If you are using 2-of-2 (2 signatures required to release it) multsig and one of the key holder has refused to sign it, you would have it trapped. However, if 8 people are invloved in making decisions and you use 5-of-8 multisig, you can have up to 3 people refusing to sign.

Can be a different story of you use A+(B OR C) multisig where A needs to sign the transaction for it to be valid.  A must sign it or it would be invalid in this case.

[Rockie1234]

Thanks a lot! I'll make sure not to use 2 out of 2 then!

[altcoinhosting]

Thanks a lot! I'll make sure not to use 2 out of 2 then!

It really depends on your specific case... There might be situations where such a multisig wallet is the perfect sollution. After all, a "standard" wallet also needs 100% of the wallet owners to agree before signing a transaction

[HCP]

Thanks a lot! I'll make sure not to use 2 out of 2 then!

It really depends on your specific case... There might be situations where such a multisig wallet is the perfect sollution. After all, a "standard" wallet also needs 100% of the wallet owners to agree before signing a transaction

Like the example given on the Bitcoin wiki for instance, where they say "Husband and Wife Savings"... 2-of-2... in that instance both Husband and Wife have to agree to spend the funds on stuff. Also useful for business partnerships to prevent one partner from running off with all the cash.

Of course, if they have a disagreement, then yes, in theory they can block the other partner from getting the funds, but they also won't be able to get them.

I guess where all parties have a vested interest in the funds, ie. they put money into the account... or they "earned" them through whatever business/action, then having an X-of-X account is probably the best idea. Then all parties will want to co-operate to ensure their share is OK.

However, if it is something like a community fund, where people are being given authority over other peoples money... then having it as at least (X-1)-of-X is better... because then it is easy to prevent someone from being a dick and stealing all the money and also trying to prevent the rest of the group from getting the funds if they have a falling out.

Generally, you'd want it to be a majority thing, so 2-of-3, 3-of-4, 3-of-5, 4-of-6 etc... democracy FTW!

[deisik]

Thanks a lot! I'll make sure not to use 2 out of 2 then!

It really depends on your specific case... There might be situations where such a multisig wallet is the perfect sollution. After all, a "standard" wallet also needs 100% of the wallet owners to agree before signing a transaction

Like the example given on the Bitcoin wiki for instance, where they say "Husband and Wife Savings"... 2-of-2... in that instance both Husband and Wife have to agree to spend the funds on stuff. Also useful for business partnerships to prevent one partner from running off with all the cash.

Of course, if they have a disagreement, then yes, in theory they can block the other partner from getting the funds, but they also won't be able to get them.

I guess where all parties have a vested interest in the funds, ie. they put money into the account... or they "earned" them through whatever business/action, then having an X-of-X account is probably the best idea. Then all parties will want to co-operate to ensure their share is OK.

However, if it is something like a community fund, where people are being given authority over other peoples money... then having it as at least (X-1)-of-X is better... because then it is easy to prevent someone from being a dick and stealing all the money and also trying to prevent the rest of the group from getting the funds if they have a falling out.

Generally, you'd want it to be a majority thing, so 2-of-3, 3-of-4, 3-of-5, 4-of-6 etc... democracy FTW!

Is it possible to make some keys overrule (some of the) others, or things would get a bit complicated and clumsy in that case? Indeed, something like that can be done through someone holding more than just one key...

As you can see, democracy is fake in the latter case (as in any other case, for that matter), lol

[helloeverybody]

Sorry for a slight hijack of thread here but whats the best wallet to use for a multisig payment setup? Is there something available for phones that can create multisig payments? I never went down the road of multisig before because like OP i was a bit concerned that if one of the party's disapeared or just refused to sign then we would have a problem. I wasnt aware that you could create a multisig with more than 2 people so im interested to give it a try.

[ranochigo]

Sorry for a slight hijack of thread here but whats the best wallet to use for a multisig payment setup?

I don't think many wallets allows the creation of multisig transactions, at least to my knowledge. Electrum is one of the more reputable SPV wallets that allows the creation of multisig wallet. It just requires the Master public key of the people involved. To sign it, you can either transfer it manually or use their plugin to send it to their central server and the other person would be able to sign it. Bitcoin Core is one that doesn't have a UI for doing this.

Is there something available for phones that can create multisig payments? I never went down the road of multisig before because like OP i was a bit concerned that if one of the party's disapeared or just refused to sign then we would have a problem. I wasnt aware that you could create a multisig with more than 2 people so im interested to give it a try.

I doubt so.

[helloeverybody]

Sorry for a slight hijack of thread here but whats the best wallet to use for a multisig payment setup?

I don't think many wallets allows the creation of multisig transactions, at least to my knowledge. Electrum is one of the more reputable SPV wallets that allows the creation of multisig wallet. It just requires the Master public key of the people involved. To sign it, you can either transfer it manually or use their plugin to send it to their central server and the other person would be able to sign it. Bitcoin Core is one that doesn't have a UI for doing this.

Is there something available for phones that can create multisig payments? I never went down the road of multisig before because like OP i was a bit concerned that if one of the party's disapeared or just refused to sign then we would have a problem. I wasnt aware that you could create a multisig with more than 2 people so im interested to give it a try.

I doubt so.

Thanks, I used electrum and gave it a try to see how it worked and it was pretty cool but a google search for an android version that could do multisig came up blank so i was just hoping that someone would have some experience with one. Maybe theres just not enough demand for a portable version.

[altcoinhosting]

Thanks, I used electrum and gave it a try to see how it worked and it was pretty cool but a google search for an android version that could do multisig came up blank so i was just hoping that someone would have some experience with one. Maybe theres just not enough demand for a portable version.

Well... The answer to your question would still be electrum:
- it's portable
- it has an android version that can be used as a multisig wallet with a little workaround*

* untested by me, but mentioned on reddit by ThomasV: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/48xxu3/electrum_launches_mobile_wallet_for_android_ios/

[–]ThomasV1 1 point 4 months ago*
Developer here. Multisig wallet creation is not supported in the current android GUI. However, it should work if you copy a multisig wallet from your desktop to your android phone.

[Abdussamad]

Apart from electrum there's also copay for multisig wallets. It's by the bitpay people. You can grab it from https://copay.io.

[SamMurphy]

Since you want to run a community fund it'd be better to have more people having keys thus helping reasoning preveil in any weird case.