How to Recover Your Coins Lost due to ViaCoin Multisig Bug

In November 2017, users have lost 300 M$ in Ethereum due to a bug in Parity wallet multisig features.

At this moment the history repeats with ViaCoin: There is a serious bug in Windows ViaCoin 2.8.3. wallet found here and available since April 2017. As a world premiere, here is the solution!

How to Recover Coins Lost

This software has been used since April 2017, the bug is now in the wild and potentially anyone using Vialectrum under windows and sending to a multisig address will lose money.

HOWEVER the coins can be recovered. For this one needs to follow the following steps:

  1. Build the dev version from sources (tried and worked under Ubuntu 16) as explained here.
    • Notes: make sure that Python3.4 or later not Python or Python 2.7.3. is used, together with git, pip3 and all the suitable packages such as setuptoools, are installed. For example “pip3 install –upgrade pip setuptools”. However it is normal that Python 2.7.3. is still present and it should not be removed. Now running “python3 — version” should produce sth like Python 3.4 or later. If  stuck with Python 3.2. in spite of reinstall, see general instructions for upgrading Python and try to uninstall and reinstall Python 3 while keeping Python 2 in place (apt-get remove vs apt-get install).
    • If problem with aes.h or similar files are reported missing, try things such as install OpenSSL or libssl through either “sudo apt-get install libsssl-dev” or “sudo apt-get install openssl”, no harm.
  2. Then run the dev gui by typing “./vialectrum”.
  3. Then create a new multisig wallet, for example 2 out of 4 with any mix of xpub, recovery seeds or xpriv exported from faulty Windows wallets.
  4. From this wallet one should be able to spend the coins lost. Just send them anywhere!
  5. This solution was tested and works.

The main developer romanoRNR has promised to release new corrected Windows distribution within days.

 

 

 

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