Signatory
A signatory is one participant in a multisig wallet. Bittensor’s Glossary: Signatory and multisig wallet guide describe multisig as shared coldkey custody distributed across a set of signatories, where any signatory can propose a transaction but execution still depends on the wallet’s threshold of approvals.
The term belongs to shared-custody vocabulary. It names one participant in the proposal and approval path, not the threshold rule itself and not the protected coldkey being shared (Secure a Coldkey with a Multisig Wallet, Glossary: Coldkey).
What It Represents
In a multisig, signatories are the wallets or participants whose approvals count toward the M of
N threshold. The multisig guide states that any signatory can propose a transaction, but the
action must be agreed by enough of the others before it executes
(Secure a Coldkey with a Multisig Wallet).
That makes signatory a participant term. It answers who can take part in the approval flow, while multisig answers how many of those participants must approve before the action proceeds.
The runtime also places an upper bound on N. The Subtensor constants reference lists
api.consts.multisig.maxSignatories with a value of 100, so a multisig can distribute authority
across many signatories but not an unbounded set
(Subtensor Constants: multisig).
Proposal and Approval Role
The multisig guide describes two recurring signatory actions: proposing a transaction and approving an existing proposal. A single signatory can start the process, but threshold approval is still required before the transaction executes (Secure a Coldkey with a Multisig Wallet).
Readers should therefore not treat one signatory’s proposal as completed wallet activity by itself. A signatory is part of the approval path, not a substitute for the threshold rule around that path.
These approvals accumulate rather than happening in one step. After a signatory proposes a transaction, the other signatories add their approvals separately, and the transaction executes only once the threshold is reached, so the approval path can span several actions before completion (Secure a Coldkey with a Multisig Wallet).
An approval also has to come from a different participant. The multisig guide specifies that the approving signatory cannot be the signatory who proposed the transaction, so a proposer cannot count their own signature toward the required approvals and a lone signatory can never advance a transaction by themselves (Secure a Coldkey with a Multisig Wallet).
Proposer Deposit Requirement
The multisig guide notes an operational requirement for the proposing signatory: the wallet that submits the proposal must place a deposit, shown in the multisig transaction modal, and must hold a balance above that amount. The deposit is returned when the multisig transaction is approved or rejected, so it is a proposal bond for the signatory who starts the action rather than an extra threshold approval (Secure a Coldkey with a Multisig Wallet).
That detail matters for planning shared custody. A signatory can be authorized to propose actions but still fail to start one if the proposing wallet lacks enough free balance for the temporary deposit.
Distinction from Multisig
A signatory is one participant in a multisig wallet. Multisig is the broader M-of-N approval
model that requires a threshold of signatories before an action is authorized
(Secure a Coldkey with a Multisig Wallet,
Glossary: Signatory).
- Signatory — one participant whose approval may count.
- Multisig — the threshold custody model those participants operate under.
Distinction from Coldkey
A signatory is one participant in a shared-custody arrangement. A coldkey is the security-sensitive wallet key whose authority the arrangement is protecting (Glossary: Signatory, Glossary: Coldkey).
- Signatory — one approver in the multisig path.
- Coldkey — the protected ownership key or wallet authority.
Distinction from Pure Proxies
A signatory is one participant whose approval counts in the multisig workflow. Pure proxies are keyless stand-in accounts sometimes used to keep multisig member slots stable when membership changes (Secure a Coldkey with a Multisig Wallet, Understanding Pure Proxies).
- Signatory — participant in the approval flow.
- Pure proxies — stable stand-in accounts inside some multisig designs.
Reader Boundary
This page defines the role term. It does not identify who the signatories are for a specific wallet or whether a particular proposal has enough approvals. Those are wallet-specific operational facts that must be checked in the actual multisig context (Secure a Coldkey with a Multisig Wallet).