On November 6, bug exploitation in a contract that serves a library function for the multi-signature hardware cryptocurrency wallets made by Parity, caused the library contract to terminate. This has effectively tied up an estimated sum of over 500,000 Ether, which is currently worth over $150 million. These funds are currently frozen and most observers are still unsure on how these funds can be returned to their holders.

One of the affected wallets contains about $90 million worth of ETH raised as a result of the Polkadot token sale. Ethereum co-creator and Parity Technologies founder Gavin Wood is also part of the Polkadot team, however, he is yet to propose a solution to the problem.

Parity has announced that the problem affects the users of their multi-signature wallets deployed after July 20, 2017. To check if your address is affected, visit this support website. This is the second major breach of a vulnerability found in a Parity client after a hacker was able to access around 153,000 ETH, worth about $30.5 million on July 19.

Because of this hack, the Parity team focused on locking down any critical security flaws that they were able to identify. It seems that their client came with an effective “kill switch” that would allow the owner of a wallet to freeze the funds held inside. The latest version of Parity’s library contract contained a persistent flaw that made it possible to turn the Parity Wallet library contract into a regular multi-sig wallet and become an owner of it by calling the initWallet function. This has been exploited, and no funds can be moved out of the multi-sig wallets.

Martin Swende, the Ethereum Foundation’s head of security, recently commented “I see it as an objective fact that these funds cannot be unlocked unless there is a hardfork involved.”

It is still unclear exactly who is behind this bug exploitation, however, there are stories emerging online that it may have been carried out by a novice Ethereum developer who triggered the kill switch accidently.

Ethereum head, Vitalik Buterin has yet to comment publically on the issue, with many in the community concerned that a hard fork may be the only viable method to resolve the solution. Last year’s DAO hack proved to be particularly divisive to the Ethereum community and the hard fork that was implemented in order to refund investors resulted in the split that created Ethereum Classic (ETC).

The price of ETH is also sure to be affected as 500,000 Ether is now frozen indefinitely.