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What Is Safe?

Safe (ticker SAFE) is the governance token of SafeDAO, the decentralized collective that stewards the Safe smart account protocol. Safe is the most widely used multisignature (multisig) wallet standard in crypto: instead of a single private key controlling funds, a Safe account is a smart contract that can require multiple signers to approve every transaction. That design has made it the default treasury tool for DAOs, crypto companies, and institutions, with more than a trillion dollars in cumulative transaction volume processed and tens of billions of dollars secured across hundreds of networks.

The project began inside Gnosis as Gnosis Safe, a multisig wallet for the Ethereum ecosystem. In 2022 the GnosisDAO community voted to spin the project off as an independent entity, and the rebranded Safe raised $100 million in a round led by 1kx, with participation from Tiger Global, Blockchain Capital, Digital Currency Group, and others. The spin-out was led by co-founders Lukas Schor and Richard Meissner, who had run the Gnosis Safe team, and the project's strategic assets are held by the non-profit Safe Ecosystem Foundation. WeUseCoins covers the original parent project separately in our Gnosis (GNO) article.

Technically, Safe is built around "smart accounts": wallets that are smart contracts rather than simple key pairs. A Safe account can require any threshold of signatures (for example 2-of-3 or 4-of-7), and it can be extended with modules for spending limits, recovery mechanisms, transaction guards, and automation. The ecosystem has two main layers: Safe{Wallet}, the flagship interface for managing multisig accounts, and Safe{Core}, the open-source account abstraction infrastructure that other developers build on. Hundreds of projects use Safe contracts under the hood, and tens of millions of Safe accounts have been deployed.

SAFE is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum with a fixed total supply of 1 billion. It was minted at the spin-out in 2022 and initially distributed as a non-transferable governance token, with an airdrop to early Safe users. The allocation dedicated roughly 40% to the SafeDAO treasury, 15% to the GnosisDAO treasury, 15% to core contributors, 8% to strategic backers, 7% to the Safe Foundation, 10% to users and ecosystem contributors, and 5% to a joint treasury, with vesting schedules stretching as long as eight years. After the DAO completed a series of governance milestones, holders voted overwhelmingly in April 2024 (proposal SEP-22) to unpause the token contract, and SAFE became freely transferable on April 23, 2024.

SAFE's primary role is governance: holders vote on SafeDAO proposals covering treasury spending, ecosystem grants, token utility, and the protocol's direction. The token has since gained an economic function as well. Safenet, a transaction security network announced in late 2024 and launched in beta in 2026, uses staked SAFE to back validators that screen Safe transactions for common attack patterns, giving the token a direct role in securing the ecosystem.

Safe was also at the center of the largest crypto theft in history, and the details matter. In February 2025, North Korea's Lazarus Group stole roughly $1.5 billion in ether from the exchange Bybit. Investigators found that the attackers had compromised a Safe{Wallet} developer's machine and injected malicious JavaScript into the wallet's web interface, which tricked Bybit's signers into approving a disguised transaction. The Safe smart contracts themselves were not exploited and no vulnerability was found in them; the breach was in the frontend infrastructure serving the app. Safe rebuilt and hardened its infrastructure in response, and the incident accelerated industry-wide work on transaction verification, including Safenet.

Getting Started With Safe

There are two distinct ways to get started: using a Safe smart account to secure your assets, or holding the SAFE token to participate in governance and staking:

  1. Step 1: To use the protocol, go to Safe{Wallet} and create a Safe account, choosing your signer keys and the signature threshold (for example 2-of-3).
  2. Step 2: To hold the token, set up an Ethereum wallet such as a Safe account, MetaMask, or a hardware wallet.
  3. Step 3: Acquire SAFE on a centralized or decentralized exchange and withdraw it to your own wallet.
  4. Step 4: Participate in SafeDAO by voting on proposals, or stake SAFE to a Safenet validator to earn rewards.

How to Get a Safe Wallet?

SAFE is a standard ERC-20 token on Ethereum, so any Ethereum wallet can hold it. Fittingly, the most secure option is a Safe smart account itself.

Safe{Wallet}

Safe's own multisig smart account is the natural home for SAFE tokens, especially for larger holdings. You can require multiple devices or people to approve transactions, set spending limits, and use the same account to vote in SafeDAO governance.

MetaMask and Other Ethereum Wallets

For smaller balances or simple holding, a standard Ethereum wallet such as MetaMask or Rabby works fine. SAFE is a regular ERC-20 token, so it appears like any other token once added.

Hardware Wallets

Ledger and Trezor devices support Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens, and both can also be used as signer keys inside a Safe smart account, combining offline key storage with multisig protection.

Safe Resources

How to Buy Safe?

SAFE has been freely tradable since April 2024 and is available on both centralized and decentralized exchanges.

Centralized Exchanges

SAFE is listed on major exchanges including Binance, Bybit, OKX, KuCoin, and Gate, typically traded against USDT.

Decentralized Exchanges

On Ethereum, SAFE can be swapped on DEXes such as Uniswap, or through aggregators like CoW Swap. Verify the contract address (0x5aFE3855358E112B5647B952709E6165e1c1eEEe on Ethereum) before trading, since lookalike tokens with similar names exist.

Latest Safe News

Safe's recent evolution has focused on hardening security and giving SAFE economic utility. In 2025 the project stood up Safe Labs, a commercial subsidiary led by CEO Rahul Rumalla that builds enterprise self-custody products, and reported annualized recurring revenue crossing $10 million, up fivefold in a year. In April 2026 the Safe Foundation launched the Safenet beta, a transaction security network in which six genesis validators screen Safe transactions for common attack vectors such as unauthorized delegate calls and tampering with account settings. SAFE staking went live on Ethereum alongside the beta, letting token holders delegate to validators, with staking rewards funded by SafeDAO through governance proposal SEP-55.

The Safenet rollout is a direct response to the lessons of the 2025 Bybit incident, shifting Safe from purely onchain contract security toward verifying the whole transaction pipeline. Because staking parameters, supported networks, and governance proposals change frequently, the Safe Foundation blog, governance hub, and documentation are the best sources for the current state of the project.