The New Last-Ditch Effort to Unfreeze a $260 Million Ethereum Fortune

That's how one ethereum user described the latest effort to recover $264 million in cryptocurrency lost due to a code fault in a popular ethereum wallet.

While the recovery efforts that have proliferated since the November incident have been so far shunned, a new effort, now documented in code, aims for a simpler and less invasive way to implement the fix.

Stepping back, in November, the code library associated with U.K. startup Parity's multi-sig wallet was deleted by a pseudonymous hacker who "Accidentally" exploited a function called "Self-destruct." In the fallout, Parity proposed a modification to the ethereum software whereby the self-destruct mechanism would lose its functionality, but the proposal was found to contain significant security risks.

This new proposal, published on April 15 by Parity Technologies communications officer Afri Schoeden, suggests simply restoring the lost wallet library with a version of the code that does not contain a self-destruct function.

Users would be able to regain access to their funds, and on top of that, the new code would protect Parity from similar exploits going forward.

The new proposal sends a clear message - when it comes to fund recovery, some developers have no intention of giving up the fight.

"I think simply recovering funds is both more technically sound and more honest than the original proposal to modify the self-destruct opcode," ethereum core developer Nick Johnson told CoinDesk.

Instead of trying to rework the whole ethereum virtual machine, the proposal would be released to Parity software clients only by way of hard fork upgrade.

Including Krug, the balance between protecting ethereum users and encouraging good security practices should be taken into account when deciding whether recoveries should happen.

"Allowing case-by-case proposals for mistake reversals is a terrible idea and opens up all kinds of concerns. This would set a terrible and dangerous precedent," one user wrote on an ethereum forum.