On November 6th, 2017 an unidentified person wiped out the library code upon which Parity multi-sig wallets’ functionality relied. The effect of this action is that Parity multi-sig wallets deployed after July 20th 2017 have been frozen. Parity Technologies has released this blog post with more details.

The multi-sig used by the Web3 Foundation to accept contributions for Polkadot was one of those affected, putting the ETH in it beyond access. We understand that others have also been affected, though who and to what extent, is currently unclear.

The affected multi-sig wallet does not contain all of the Web3 Foundation’s funds; our ability to build Polkadot as planned and to the original timetable has not been affected.

The Foundation has not yet understood the sequence of events leading to the user’s suicide call to the contract library, but we are making all efforts to evaluate them, the ramifications and any possible solutions.

This is a dynamic situation and we will aim to provide an update when we can.