Parity will not Pursue Hard Fork to Unstuck 500,000 Ether

A few weeks ago, Ethereum took a big hit after wallet-provider Parity had to deal with a bug, resulting in the freezing of roughly 500,000 in Ether. The software malfunction, which was mistakenly triggered by a Parity user left numerous Ether holders with their funds suspended. Now, recent reports indicate that Parity did consider the idea of pursuing a hard fork meant to unlock the funds in question, yet this proposal was rejected by the Ethereum community.

For those who do not know, the software malfunction worked by transforming a large number of Ether wallets into multi-signature wallets, rather than single-signature. This means that some wallet holders now have to seek approval from the second owner, who is basically inexistent. While the funds have not been stolen, they are trapped in a limbo, as neither Parity nor the users can access their wallets and make transactions. It is believed that the suspended funds are worth a few million dollars.

Now, that the community has decided to reject the hard fork idea, Parity made a blog statement saying that:  “No one should be under any illusion that unlocking these stuck funds would be anything other than a rescue operation – and would only be possible with a hard fork.”

A while back, the Ethereum community and the network set a precedent after relying on a hard fork in order to rescue a large number of funds which are stolen following a DAO hack. While this issue has been fixed through deploying a hard fork on the network, this solution is not ideal as it basically means breaking the network into two different pieces, and having users pursue which they deem more convenient.

A few other solutions were proposed a while back, yet the community also rejected these. At this moment in time, it is unclear what Parity will do to unlock the funds in question. Repaying all users would be close to impossible, given the fact that the funds are worth a hundreds of millions, and would otherwise lead to Parity most likely becoming bankrupt.

The Ethereum community has greatly appreciated the fact that Parity listened to user feedback and hence decided to hard forking the network to regain access to the funds isn’t the best idea. The solution that will be used is still undetermined, but the community is confident that a solution will be found sooner or later.