What is Multisig?

A multisig is a wallet that requires more than one signature to move funds. Instead of a single private key, it is controlled by a set of signers, and a transaction executes only when a defined number of them, two of three or three of five for example, have approved it. On Ethereum and the EVM chains the standard implementation is Safe, a smart contract that holds the assets and enforces the threshold; Bitcoin has multisig built into its script.

The point is to remove the single point of failure. A team treasury controlled by one key is one phishing email away from being empty; the same treasury behind a three-of-five multisig needs three separate compromises. Individuals use the same idea for personal cold storage, keeping signers on different devices in different places so that no single loss or theft is fatal.

A multisig is an address like any other, and on EVM chains it is a contract address. Its balances, DeFi positions and history are public and readable by anyone, without any signer being involved. The queue of proposed but not yet executed transactions lives inside the multisig app until it executes; the settled state lives on the chain.

TrueHold reads a Safe or any other multisig by its address on each chain where it is deployed and totals the deployments together as one treasury, with no signer, proposal or signature involved. The Safe coverage page on this site describes the workflow.

The threshold is the design decision. Two of three suits a small team or an individual with a backup signer; three of five or higher suits a treasury with several custodians in different places. Too low a threshold defeats the purpose; too high one risks funds becoming unreachable when signers are unavailable.

Rotating a signer is a routine transaction, which is another argument for the design.