# Why Fork Metamask ? Qtum differs fundamentally from Ethereum in it's UTXOs Accounting because it is a fork of Bitcoin. In order to sign Qtum transactions we need access to sign arbitrary data. Metamask is designed in such a way that this is impossible in modern versions - as this is very dangerous. Giving unrestricted access to your private key to DAPPs is very dangerous and can easily lead to stolen funds without your knowledge. This used to be possible with legacy `eth_sign` functionality, but modern Metamask versions have completely disabled access to unrestricted arbitrary data signing which makes signing Qtum transactions with Metamask impossible. Modern Metamask `eth_sign` behaves indentically to `personal_sign` which prefixes data which makes signing arbitrary data impossible. Another technical issue is how accounts are generated from public keys. * Ethereum computes [KECCAK-256](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-3) from an uncompressed public key * Qtum/Bitcoin computes [RIPEMD-160](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIPEMD) from a compressed public key --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.qtum.info/qtum-documentation/qnekt/why-fork-metamask.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.