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Someone deleted some code in a popular cryptocurrency wallet — and as much as $280 million in ether

An estimated $280M worth of ether is locked up because of one person's mistake. An unidentified user accidentally deleted the code library required to use recently created digital wallets within Parity, a popular digital-wallet provider. The experiment continues!

Multi-sig wallets are especially popular among cryptocurrency startups and other groups because they require more than one person to agree before any currency gets moved around. It's a safeguard against rogue employees who might want to run off with the money. For this reason, it's also a popular way of storing cryptocurrency raised in initial coin offerings, a new fundraising technique in which investors trade cryptocurrencies like ether and bitcoin for new ones created by companies. Exactly how much cryptocurrency has been locked up because of the bug is unclear, but some cryptocurrency blogs have reported that Parity wallets make up 20% of the entire Ethereum network, which powers the ether cryptocurrency.

Tags

cryptocurrency, ethereum