Developer Accidentally Took Ownership, and Froze Millions of Ethereum Funds

When a developer accidentally took control of hundreds of ether wallets, the only solution might be through an emergency update of Ethereum.

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When a developer accidentally took control of virtually hundreds of ether wallets, it seemed the only solution to get the funds back is through an emergency update of Ethereum.

What happened?

Parity Tech, makers of an ethereum client was fixing a bug discovered last July. However, a series of bugs were then discovered and one curious developer attempted to fix it. The fix triggered a bug that made him the owner of hundreds of ethereum wallets.

However, when the developer attempted to fix it by deleting the code that transferred to him the ownership, it resulted in the funds being locked, with no way to reclaim them.

The deletion of code caused the system to freeze and lock around $150 million in funds that are stored in Parity Wallets.

Parity Ethereum Hack: How can this be fixed?

Parity has announced that they are working on a fix. However, many are already suggesting that the only way to recover this is through a hard fork of Ethereum. That, though, will require all users to upgrade to the new software. Or else, the Ethereum blockchain will split again just like in 2016 when Ethereum Classic was created from the Ethereum fork by users who originally did not believe in the split.

Current Updates

It was reported that some projects who raised ICO in the past weeks and months have been affected because their funds are locked up and affected by the Parity bug.

Parity has also launched a website that allows users to find out if their wallets are affected or not.

Reactions

Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin declined to comment and mentioned he supports everyone creating simpler, safer, and more secure wallets.

BlackTower Founder Air Paul mentioned in a comment that a security flaw on 1 ethereum wallet might lead the public to question the security of other wallets.

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