Updating an account to multi-sig

Prerequisites

  • We assume that you have cli_wallet running and connected to an exiting witness node.

  • We assume that you have set up a wallet in the CLI and imported the active private key of an account with some BTS funds in it. We will refer to this account as your-base-account.

  • We assume that you have already imported the active private key of an account, which you want to turn into a multi-sig account. We will refer to this account as future-multi-sig-account. Also, we'll need some BTS funds on this account to cover transaction fees.

  • We assume that you have already created and registered two other accounts, which will act as the multi-sig approving accounts. We will refer to these accounts as approving-account-1 and approving-account-2.

Get account IDs

To get the account IDs of future-multi-sig-account, approving-account-1 and approving-account-2, run these commands:

get_account <future-multi-sig-account-name>
get_account <approving-account-1-name>
get_account <approving-account-2-name>

We will need those IDs in subsequent steps.

Initialize transaction builder

We start by initializing the transaction builder with this command:

begin_builder_transaction

As a response, you'll receive an ID of the builder process - let's call it <builder-handle-ID>. This ID will be used in all subsequent commands involving the transaction builder.

Add update to the builder

We will now define the account update operation we want to execute. Our variables are as follows:

  • <future-multi-sig-account-ID> - the ID of future-multi-sig-account ,
  • <approving-account-1-ID> - the ID of the first approving account, e.g. 1.2.129,
  • <approving-account-2-ID> - the ID of the second approving account, e.g. 1.2.130,
  • <approving-account-1-power> - the approval power of the first approving account, e.g. 50,
  • <approving-account-2-power> - the approval power of the second approving account, e.g. 30,
  • <multi-sig-threshold> - threshold required to access the funds, e.g. 75.

Note that the sum of <approving-account-1-power> and <approving-account-2-power> has to be equal or greater than <multi-sig-threshold>.

Run the add_operation_to_builder_transaction command to define the account update:

add_operation_to_builder_transaction <builder-handle-ID> [ 6, \
{"account": "<future-multi-sig-account-ID>", "active": \
{"weight_threshold": <multi-sig-threshold>, \
"account_auths": [["<approving-account-1-ID>",<approving-account-1-power>],\
["<approving-account-2-ID>",<approving-account-2-power>]], \
"key_auths": [], "address_auths": [] }, "extensions": []} ]

Note that the value 6, used in the first line, is specific for the account_update_operation, which we need for this purpose.

Pay the transaction fee

To create the required transaction fee, associated with the account update, run this command: 

set_fees_on_builder_transaction <builder-handle-ID> BTS

Sign the builder transaction

To complete the process, i.e. sign and broadcast the above builder transactions, run this command:

sign_builder_transaction <builder-handle-ID> true

If you receive no error, it means future-multi-sig-account has been successfully updated to a multi-sig account, controlled by <approving-account-1> and <approving-account-2>.

Try it out

Transfer some funds to the new multi-sig account:

transfer <your-base-account-name> <future-multi-sig-account-name> 10000000 BTS "here is some cash" true

Now let's try to pay out some funds from the multi-sig account (make sure it's less than the amount received, so there are funds left to cover the transfer fee):

transfer <future-multi-sig-account-name> <your-base-account-name> 300000 BTS "paying back" true

As a result, you should get an error indicating that funds cannot be moved:

0 exception: unspecified
3030001 tx_missing_active_auth: missing required active authority
Missing Active Authority 1.2.132

This is the expected outcome, as we are now dealing with a multi-sig account. In order to pay out any funds from it, we need to propose a transfer instead, and have it approved by approving-account-1 and / or approving-account-2.