Success!

What transpired over the past month with regards to multisignature transactions is a true testament to what the Steem community can do if we work together towards a common goal. We now have four great guides on how to use multisignature transactions on Steem!!

For those of you who are just interested in getting the guides, you can scroll down to the bottom of the post. For the rest of you, please read on :)

What are Multisignature Transactions? (Background Info)

Multisignature transactions are a security feature that requires a transaction to be signed by multiple parties (each with their own key) before the transaction is considered valid. They are an extremely useful security feature that provide support for a lot of beneficial things.

A lot of investors will consider multisignature transactions a requirement in order to purchase and hold a coin. Many developers can also use multisignature transactions to add additional layers of security to their applications and tools. There are even some creative ways they can be used to design fancy features within applications.

The Bounty Process

The Steem blockchain has always supported multisignature transactions, although they have been extremely underutilized due to lack of proper tooling and guides.

About a month ago I started talking to other witnesses, developers, and stakeholders about the possibility for offering a bounty to incentivize people in the community to help solve the problem and create better tooling and guides.

I was planning to offer 100 STEEM for a bounty to create a multisignature transaction guide that would give the community the information they need to properly use multisignature transactions. I was amazed to see how many other people quickly jumped in and offered to pitch in 100 STEEM of their own to add to the bounty!

Within a few weeks, we had a total of 1,500 STEEM added to the bounty - thanks to all our contributors: @transisto, @elear, @therealwolf, @drakos, @instructor2121, @sorin.cristescu, @clayop, @ausbitbank, @thecryptodrive, @yabapmatt, @aggroed, @cervantes, @upheaver, @lukestokes, and me (@timcliff).

Five days ago we officially launched the 1,500 STEEM Bounty to create a multisignature transaction guide. I was blown away by the results!! (Details below.)

Bounty Results

There was a reason that we all chipped in 100 STEEM to make this a 1,500 STEEM bounty - the problem we were trying to solve was hard! This is something that had not been addressed in years, and I had spoken to several people who had tried.

When we put together the bounty, we were unsure if we were even going to get a successful submission. We put in a clause to the rules that: If no valid submissions have been received by 23:59 (UTC) on March 31, 2019 then the bounty will be void/canceled - because we weren't even sure if 1,500 STEEM would be enough to motivate someone to solve the problem.

It turns out it was! In fact, within a few hours - we had MULTIPLE PEOPLE who had solved it!!

Bounty Winner

Even though it was very unexpected to have multiple submissions so quickly, we did have terms on how to deal with it. The terms stated that If there are multiple submissions, they will be evaluated in the order that they are received. The first submission to receive 12/15 approval will be the winner of the bounty.

@crokkon was the first to submit his entry, and the committee voted on his submission. We ruled that the submission did meet the terms of the bounty, and @crokkon should be awarded the 1,500 STEEM.

Congratulations @crokkon! Great job, and thank you so much for your contribution to Steem!!!

Heavy Lifter Award

@holger80 was the third person to submit an entry to the bounty. Due to the terms, he was not eligible for the 1,500 STEEM (since @crokkon won), although it is important to mention how important @holger80's work was for the success of this bounty.

All four submissions that we received for the bounty contest used the beem library, which @holger80 is responsible for creating and maintaining. Ironically @holger80 was later to submitting his guide to the bounty contest because he was spending the day upgrading beem to better support multisignature transactions.

Several people who were involved in the bounty have decided to pitch in some additional STEEM to reward @holger80 for his efforts. The contributions include: myself (100 STEEM), @starkerz (50 STEEM), @thecryptodrive (a large Steemvoter guild upvote), @drakos (33 STEEM), and @cervantes (33 STEEM).

If you would like to help recognize @holger80 for his amazing work in adding multisig support to beem - feel free to send some more STEEM/SBD his way ;)

Also, @holger80 is one of our backup witnesses who puts in a ton of effort to improve the Steem blockchain and community. If you have any available witness votes to use, you should check him out and consider giving him your vote!

Honorable Mentions

@tcpolymath and @stoodkev also both submitted great guides to the contest within the first 24 hours. Even though they did not win the bounty (due to not being first) their work should also not go unrecognized.

Several people who were involved in the bounty have also decided to pitch in some additional STEEM to reward @tcpolymath and @stoodkev for their efforts. The contributions include: myself (50 STEEM each), @starkerz (25 STEEM each), @thecryptodrive (a large Steemvoter guild upvote), @drakos (33 STEEM each), and @cervantes (33 STEEM each).

If you would like to help recognize @tcpolymath and @stoodkev for their contributions - feel free to send some more STEEM/SBD their way ;)

Payout Terms (fine print)

The terms of the bounty state that each of the 15 contributors will send their STEEM individually, so the winners should be receiving their awards from each of us over the next few days.

The Multisignature Transaction Guides

Here are the four guides that we now have as a result of the bounty:

• Steem Multi-Signature Transaction Guide for Beem/Python (by @crokkon)
• Make Multisig transactions with Beem without spending all day in the transaction builder. (by @tcpolymath)
• Multisignature Transaction Guide for beempy (by @holger80)
• How to set up and use multisignature accounts on Steem Blockchain.
  (by @stoodkev)

Thanks @crokkon, @tcpolymath, @holger80, and @stoodkev!!

Bonus - A Multisignature Transaction App

Now with all the infrastructure in place, the developer community should have what they need to start using multisignature transactions to their full advantage!

We already have one dev who created a multisignature transaction app :) You can check it out here: msteem - Multisignature transaction app

Final Thoughts

I am constantly impressed by the amazing things that our community does. The results of this bounty are no exception. Everyone involved helped to chip in and make this a success, and the results speak for themselves. We now have great documentation and tools to support multisignature transactions =)

Great job everyone!!!