Have you seen this “Validate signature error” in your wallet? It indicates that your wallet is part of a multi-signature wallet and requires double signing to proceed with an outgoing transaction.
What is a multi-signature wallet?
A multi-signature wallet is one type of crypto wallet which requires two or multiple transaction signs to make a crypto transaction. When you create an outgoing transaction from your wallet, it requires your permission ( signature). In the Trust wallet, you are signing a transaction when you click on the “ confirm” button during the process of sending/swapping/approving transactions. It’s a single signature wallet because you only need one secret phrase/ private key to sign a transaction.
It is different on a multi-signature wallet. A multi-signature enabled address could require two or more signatures based on the number of Private keys (PKs) the user has associated with the public address.
A multi-signature wallet can consist of 3-5 wallets and set a rule of at least 2-5 transactions signing to send crypto from the address. Few wallets support multi-signature transactions and wallet creation. Some renowned wallets are - Electrum, blue wallet, copay, Armony, and Bitgo.
Pros - Multi-signature enabled wallet improves the security of your wallet. Imagine you have a multi-signature wallet, and somehow, a hacker got one of your wallet’s private keys associated with the wallet. The Hacker won’t be able to steal your funds despite having the private key because more than one signature will be required to steal the funds.
Cons - Multi-signature wallets aren’t convenient for daily spending and need more understanding than general crypto knowledge to set up a wallet. Besides, you must keep more than one private key/seed phrase safe to access your crypto.
Why validate signature error displays?
This is an error Trust wallet displays for the multi-signature enabled wallet when trying to send crypto. It means you need to sign the transaction from another associated wallet/s to make a successful transaction. It won’t be possible to make a transaction with a single signature.
How to fix it?
To fix it, A user must sign transactions from multiple wallets associated with the multi-signature wallet. Suppose you have a wallet consisting of 3 wallets and two signs. You need two private keys at least to manage the crypto of your multi-sig wallet.
Ongoing scams by multisig wallets - Scammers are spreading multi-sig enabled wallets all over social media to scam people. They share only one private key of a multi-sig wallet with some crypto while keeping the other private keys. So nobody can transfer the funds. Their main intention is to take cryptos that people deposit to pay transaction fees. Unaware of this scam, many users fail for it and lose money.