2

I'm following the information here but hoping to save some troubleshooting time. It says "First, the wallet to be converted to multisig must be empty. It is best to use a brand-new walllet for the purpose." Assuming that I need to setup many multisig addresses, can I just use the create_address method and then convert that to multisig?

I want to be able to have multiple multisig and non-multisig addresses for different purposes. I'm using the wallet RPC daemon.

Paragon512
  • 35
  • 2
  • I think I know the answer. That a new wallet (Not just a new address) must be created. Also that new wallets cannot be created by RPC. Also that multiple wallets cannot be managed by the same monero-wallet-rpc service (Not efficiently anyway). So this will be a more annoying task but still doable. /slitwrist – Paragon512 Apr 01 '20 at 22:56

1 Answers1

3

Each multisig wallet can only have a single address for incoming funds. This address will be different from any of the usual addresses created by a wallet prior to multisig conversion.

You cannot know the multisig address until you have completed the multisig wallet make_multisig process (in the case of N/N wallets) or have completed the make_multisig and finalize_multisig process (in the case of M/N threshold wallets).

Therefore you cannot use create_address method first to create any multisig addresses. You can use the create_address method to create valid addresses for that wallet's original seed (prior to multisig conversion), but the wallet will no longer keep track of or scan for incoming funds from these old addresses after you convert it to a multisig wallet. You should therefore not attempt to use the same wallet file for both multisig and non-multisig use.

knaccc
  • 8,468
  • 16
  • 22
  • Is there anywhere any well documented use cases for this thing? – Mogens TrasherDK Apr 02 '20 at 09:23
  • @MogensTrasherDK It's useful for sharing custody of funds and theoretically useful in marketplaces. These use cases tend to be talked about in forums and in blog posts rather than being officially documented, as far as I know. – knaccc Apr 02 '20 at 15:45
  • Okay, the shared custody I can see, but I'm having a hard time visualizing a workflow for usage in anything else. – Mogens TrasherDK Apr 03 '20 at 04:32
  • @MogensTrasherDK You buy a product and create a 2/3 multisig wallet with the merchant and a marketplace arbiter as the other participants. If the merchant sends you the goods, either you or the arbiter can step in to release funds to the merchant. If the merchant doesn't deliver, you can ask the arbiter to step in to release your funds back to you. – knaccc Apr 03 '20 at 19:12
  • But to get to a stage where a 2/3 multisig transaction is as simple as described, you need a bunch of back and forth exchanging of addresses and keys, right? – Mogens TrasherDK Apr 05 '20 at 02:33
  • @MogensTrasherDK Yes the multisig has to be first set up through that make_multisig/finalize_multisig process. Btw there are some multisig scenarios worked through in detail in the new edition of Zero to Monero just released https://web.getmonero.org/library/Zero-to-Monero-2-0-0.pdf Obviously, this whole workflow would be greatly automated if this started to be used in commerce, so that users did not have to complete these manual technical steps themselves. – knaccc Apr 06 '20 at 22:39
  • So, chicken-egg problem. I've been skimming the Z2M thing, but haven't reached multisig yet. – Mogens TrasherDK Apr 07 '20 at 02:59
  • @MogensTrasherDK I'm not exactly sure where you see there being a chicken-egg problem. Do you mean that if a marketplace doesn't use multisig, there will be no user-friendly implementation, but no user-friendly implementation will be built if there is no marketplace adoption? If you want to buy in a marketplace with multisig, perhaps in the future there would be a special payment address that instructs your wallet to use a communication channel to create and fund a multisig wallet together with the merchant and arbiter, – knaccc Apr 07 '20 at 03:21
  • As far as I can figure out, it's not usable in a web-site kind of market, without special client software, incorporating client wallet software. – Mogens TrasherDK Apr 07 '20 at 04:29