Ethreum Multisig Wallet – How It works And Why To Use

5 min read

Depiction of an Ethereum wallet with multiple keys

With cryptocurrency popularization, safety talks have been ever-present. Their online, decentralized nature leaves a lot of room for safety improvements but also room for hackers. However, the measures people usually talk about are fairly general. The talking points include using a separate email for crypto services, using a VPN, and other general internet safety measures.

What they don’t tell you is that all these measures are easily exploitable by skilled hackers. Even a well-timed phishing scam might be able to break through these measures, although it’s admittedly less likely. Luckily, there is a safer method.

Crypto problems require crypto solutions. Fortunately, there is just the digital solution you’re looking for in multisig wallets!

What Are Multisig Wallets?

A multisig wallet is a new way of securing your crypto transactions. In traditional wallets, you verify your transactions via a single digital signature. For a single transaction, that means going through three stages, key generation, signature generation, and verification.

The issue here is that all that goes through a single user. So if the signature holder is compromised, an entire transaction could be rerouted. Essentially, that puts you at much more significant risk of losing your crypto to a cyberattack.

However, a multisig wallet is different in that it uses multiple keys, each producing its own signature. That makes them much more resilient to cybercriminals, ensuring they need to hack into multiple devices to succeed. The entire process is possible because one smart contract can call on another. Traditionally, a multisig wallet operates via smart contract technology.

What Happens in an Ethereum Multisig Transaction?

If you’re serious about getting an Ethereum multisig wallet, you’re likely going to want a more detailed explanation. We’ll act as your guide through the steps of a multisig transfer, so you can get a firmer grasp on the subject.

To start, we compose an unsigned transaction, wrapping it in a multisig transaction right after. That forms a new unsigned transaction which you would then sign and notify the blockchain. That would prompt N signers to view the transaction and verify it. M out of N signers will need to approve the transaction and sign it. Then, when the last required signer submits their signature, the transaction will go through.

Why Doesn’t Everyone Use Multisig?

Multisig technology is exceedingly complex and far from widely supported. Implementing it is difficult, and most crypto platforms opt for easier solutions. 

It’s also worth noting that creating a wallet itself is costly. A Etherum multisig wallet will set you back at least $100, and often much more. If you’re a massive volume crypto trader, that might not sound like much. However, if you’re just looking for small-scale Ethereum transactions and haven’t faced security issues in the past, you might not feel like it’s worth it.

The transactions themselves also yield higher costs. Since multiple costs and multiple signatures are generated, the transaction fee you need to pay for a transfer is steeper. Not only that, but the process is much slower since the signature generation takes time.

Mutisig and Smart Contracts

Traditionally, a multisig wallet will be faced with one issue while executing a transaction. Namely, these wallets operate via smart contracts, meaning the transfer cryptography happens on-chain. In most cases, that won’t make much of a difference, but for larger transactions, it might draw unwanted attention. Since the participants are visible, that may expose them to risk. 

Is There a Solution?

With all that, a multisig wallet may seem deeply flawed. And to some extent, it is still unrefined, making it a questionable choice for holding and trading Ethereum. Using a smart contract presents a seemingly insurmountable issue as far as privacy and cost go.

However, there is a multisig wallet that managed to fight the issue. WH Cypher is a wallet that employs a broad array of technologies to combat the usual weaknesses you’d face in a multisig contract. Let’s take a look at how it does that.

How WH Cypher Improves the Multisig Wallet Formula

WhalesHeaven developed their own technology that would break the issues that mutisig wallets usually face. WH Cypher mixes and matches numerous types of technology, taking the best out of each. If you’re looking for an option for an Ethereum multisignature wallet, you should strongly consider WH Cypher. 

The reason we’re adamant about WH Cypher being the best wallet to consider is that its advantage isn’t incremental. Its developers have made a serious attempt to improve upon the multisignature wallet formula and come up with brilliant solutions. The core advantage comes from WH Cypher mixing multisig technology with Threshold signatures (TSS). That manages to eliminate the disadvantages of traditional multisig wallets, such as smart contract use, without compromising the advantages.

No Smart Contract

Another major improvement WH Cypher provides over a usual wallet is how it generated the multisig. In the wallet generation phase, instead of deploying a smart contract to blockchain with multiple participants, it splits private key generation across multiple users.

The method splits the private key into M out of N fractions where N is the number of participating parties. That way, any grouping of participants less than M doesn’t have any meaningful key info. Any of them individually retain the right to create a public key, helping with wallets that multiple people operate.  

The verification process itself is the same as with single digital signature schemes. However, since the key holders are anonymous, the likelihood of them all getting compromised is astronomically low. That way, WH Cypher preserves the advantages of single and multisig wallets using TSS.

If You’re Compromised

One advantage of WH Cypher being free is that you can easily switch if you’re compromised. You won’t need to pay for a new $200 wallet and go through a tedious setup process. You can generate a new free wallet and move your funds there without much effort.

That’s one of the merits of using WH Cypher. It finds easy solutions to complex problems, allowing even inexperienced users to solve them efficiently. It’s one of the things that make WH Cypher a fully secure crypto wallet.

Speed

Earlier, we talked about how generating multiple keys and multiple signatures takes time. That slows down the process of every transfer, which is rough since some tokens already have long transaction times. However, if you’re looking for a quick Ethereum multisig wallet, WH Cypher has got you covered.

Since there is only one key, the generation process is much quicker than it is with traditional multisig wallets. That means the verification process depends solely on how fast the participating parties will verify the transaction.

Cost

The cost of WH Cypher is much cheaper than a standard multisig wallet, both in terms of gas fees and starting cost. As we said, the usual cost for an Ethereum multisig wallet starts at $50. However, that’s not nearly the average cost, and some go for much higher. On the other hand, WH Cypher doesn’t cost anything, as WhalesHeaven made using the software entirely free.

As for the gas price, since the wallet doesn’t use a smart contract, it’s much cheaper. Namely, the multisig transaction fees are, on average, 75% cheaper than they are using similar software. Looking at Ethereum specifically, we can see that a single 2-0f-2 multisig transaction with WH Cypher would be around $6 compared to $120 on other wallets. 

The low prices make WH Cypher much more attractive than other wallets if you plan to use it for an extended period.

Simplicity 

Although a multisig wallet isn’t exactly something a beginner in cryptocurrencies will know about, it’s universally useful. As such, WhalesHeaven made sure its wallet was accessible even to novices. Instead of a complex setup, all you need to do is download a browser extension. You’ll have full access to WH Cypher’s functionality, resulting in a quick, cheap, and most importantly, secure crypto experience.

The company is also making an effort to create Android, IOS, and Firefox addon versions of the top Ethereum multisig wallet.

Universal

Another advantage of WH Cypher is that it’s the first multisig wallet to work across all blockchains. That means you won’t need a separate Bitcoin, XRP, and Ethereum wallet. Considering that some of those wallets would set you back $50-100 if you were using competitors, WH Cypher is the much more financially sound choice.

It’s also much easier to use. You don’t have to set up multiple different keys depending on what you want to trade, and you can keep all your crypto together.

Conclusion

Success in traditional investing comes from sound positions, calmness, and knowing when to get in and out. The same is true for cryptocurrencies, but there’s an additional element. Unlike traditional trading, where tech has brought little innovation, the digital currency world constantly has new technology. Those that stay on top of the latest innovations and trends can get ahead of the curve, resulting in more significant profits.

WH Cypher is one of those innovations that’s likely to be a trend-setter. It seems like the logical next step of crypto storage. It fuses the best of both worlds as far as single digital signature and multisig wallets go. It’s cheap and quick while matching and even surpassing the safety of a multisig wallet.

Safety-wise, you can only be secure with a hardware wallet. However, crypto holders already know the difficulties that come with using a cold wallet. With that, we strongly recommend trying out WH Cypher; it’s even free, so you can’t lose anything if you don’t like it.