What Is Safe? The Multisig Smart Account Formerly Known as Gnosis Safe

Who runs Safe today

Responsibility is split between two bodies. The Safe Ecosystem Foundation is a non-profit in Zug, Switzerland. It issues the SAFE token and backs the wider ecosystem. In June 2025 it launched Safe Labs as a commercial, fully owned subsidiary and named Rahul Rumalla as CEO (Safe blog). Rumalla previously led product at Core Contributors, the studio that had developed Safe.

The current Safe{Wallet} terms (version 1.0, effective October 2025) name Safe Labs GmbH as the contracting party. They state that Safe Labs has no contractual relationship with Core Contributors GmbH and is not its legal successor. The terms are governed by German law. The imprint lists Rumalla as managing director and [email protected] as the general contact.

From Gnosis Safe to Safe

Safe grew out of the Gnosis prediction-market project. According to Safe's own history:

• 2017: Stefan George wrote the Gnosis Multi-signature Wallet after Gnosis's token sale.
• 2018: It was rebuilt as Gnosis Safe, a general-purpose smart account, and a team-oriented web app followed.
• July 2022: The project spun out of Gnosis and renamed itself Safe. Co-founder Lukas Schor wrote the history post.
• September 2022: SafeDAO and the SAFE token were introduced.

Older guides, tutorials and documentation that say "Gnosis Safe multisig" describe the same smart-account design used today.

How a Safe account works

A Safe is a smart contract account, not a key pair. Ownership rules live in code (Safe docs):

• Owners. These can be ordinary wallets (including hardware wallets), other smart accounts or passkeys.
• Threshold. The number of owner confirmations needed to execute a transaction, for example 2 of 3 or 3 of 5. Owners and the threshold can be changed later, but only through a transaction that itself meets the current threshold.
• Modules. Optional add-ons that let certain transactions run without the full threshold. Safe documents Allowance (spending limit), Recovery, ERC-4337 and Passkey modules. A spending-limit module, for example, can let one owner move a capped amount without collecting other signatures.
• Guards. Optional contracts that check a transaction before execution and can block it. Safe's docs warn that a malicious guard could lock an account, so add only guards you have reviewed.

In practice, one owner proposes a transaction, the others sign it from their own devices, and the last signer (or a relayer) executes it on-chain. Each Safe is a lightweight proxy that points to a shared, audited singleton contract. This design keeps deployment costs down.

Because no single key controls the account, losing one owner key is survivable as long as enough owners remain to meet the threshold. If too many owners lose access, nobody can recover the account, Safe Labs included.

Products

• Safe{Wallet}. The web and mobile apps for creating Safes, proposing and signing transactions, and connecting Safe Apps (third-party dApps inside the interface).
• Native swaps. Token swaps inside Safe{Wallet}, routed through CoW Protocol (and LiFi on some routes), with a tiered fee (below).
• Safe Shield. A security layer that decodes and simulates transactions before signing, flags risks and can enforce policies. It also runs AML and OFAC screening, according to Safe.
• Safe Pro. A paid plan for organizations running several Safes, with workspaces and sponsored gas.
• Safe{API} and SDKs. Developer tools for building on Safe smart accounts.

What Safe costs

Creating and using a Safe has three possible cost layers.

1. Network gas. Deploying a Safe and executing each transaction cost gas on the chain you use. Safe's relay can let you pay in supported ERC-20 tokens, or a third party can sponsor the gas.
2. Native swap fee (Safe help center, as of October 2026):

\*Stablecoin tiers apply on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Gnosis Chain and Base. The fee is collected by CoW Swap or LiFi depending on the route, and part of it goes to the Safe Foundation.

1. Safe Pro subscription (pricing page, excluding VAT, as of October 2026): Starter at €189 per month (2 Safe accounts), Business at €669 per month (5 to 20 accounts), and custom Enterprise pricing. Both paid tiers include a 30-day trial.

Third-party Safe Apps can charge their own fees, and Safe Labs does not control them.

Illustrative example (assumptions): A $10,000 swap between two volatile tokens through native swaps carries a $70 Safe-route fee (0.70%), plus price impact and the gas to execute the Safe transaction. Routing the same trade through an outside DEX via a Safe App avoids the native-swap fee but brings that DEX's own costs.

Security record and the 2025 Bybit incident

Safe's contracts have a long production history. The Safe homepage cites 18+ independent smart-account audits, and Safe runs a bug bounty (report vulnerabilities to [email protected]). The project's most serious incident, however, came through its web interface, not its contracts.

On February 21, 2025, attackers moved more than $1.5 billion in ETH and stETH out of a Bybit multisig wallet that used Safe{Wallet}. Safe attributed the attack to a compromised Safe{Wallet} developer machine, which led to a disguised malicious transaction being proposed. Investigators found malicious JavaScript served from app.safe.global that targeted Bybit's signers. An external forensic review found no vulnerabilities in Safe's smart contracts (BleepingComputer). The attack was attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group.

The lesson for users is that multisig protects against one stolen key. It does not protect against every signer approving the same deceptive transaction. Safe signers should:

• Verify transaction details on the hardware wallet's own screen (see OBOL's hardware wallet setup guide).
• Simulate or decode transactions before signing.
• Treat any change of owners, threshold, modules, guards or `delegatecall` as high risk.

Who Safe suits, and its limits

Safe is built for funds that more than one person or device should control: DAO treasuries, company wallets, and individuals who want to split keys across hardware wallets. It is a heavier tool than a regular single-key wallet:

• Every action needs coordination among signers.
• Each transaction costs more gas than a simple transfer.
• An account set up on one network does not automatically exist on another.

The background on choosing between wallet types is in OBOL's crypto wallets 101. OBOL's separate Safe wallet review holds its editorial assessment.

The SAFE token

SAFE is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum with a maximum supply of 1 billion (Etherscan), issued by the Safe Ecosystem Foundation rather than Safe Labs. It is used in SafeDAO governance. You do not need it to create or use a Safe, and it is not equity in Safe Labs.

Getting help

The Safe{Wallet} terms list these support channels: the help center at help.safe.global (with Intercom chat), Discord at chat.safe.global and the official X account. Report security vulnerabilities to [email protected]. Safe Labs cannot reset owners, reverse transactions or recover keys, so be wary of anyone offering account recovery for a fee.

Official channels

• Website: safe.global
• App: app.safe.global
• Help center: help.safe.global
• GitHub: github.com/safe-global
• X: x.com/SafeLabs_
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/safe-ecosystem/