As a comprehensive infrastructure that combines the features of a “smart contract wallet,” “multi-signature wallet,” and “account abstraction concept,” Safe has announced that token transfers will be available after April 23. This article provides a detailed introduction to the token economics and ecosystem development of Safe.
Overview
Safe, a decentralized custody protocol and digital asset management platform (formerly known as Gnosis Safe), was launched in 2018. Its slogan is “Unlock Digital Asset Ownership.” The offline team is mainly based in Berlin, Germany, and the Safe Foundation is registered in Zug, Switzerland.
Token Economics Model
The total supply of SAFE tokens is fixed at 1 billion, minted by the Safe Foundation. The distribution is as follows:
Users: 5% (50 million tokens)
Ecosystem members/guardians: 5% (50 million tokens)
– 25 million tokens have been allocated and 12.5 million tokens are already fully unlocked, while the remaining 12.5 million tokens have a 4-year vesting period.
Institutional investors: 8% (80 million tokens)
– Unlocks starting from July 8, 2023, with a 4-year vesting period.
Safe Foundation: 7% (70 million tokens) with a 4-year vesting period.
Core team members: 15% (150 million tokens) with a 4-year vesting period.
GnosisDAO Treasury: 15% (150 million tokens) with a 4-year vesting period starting from May 1, 2022.
SafeDAO Treasury: 40% (400 million tokens) with an 8-year vesting period.
GnosisDAO & SafeDAO joint treasury: 5% (50 million tokens) fully unlocked.
On July 12, 2022, Gnosis Safe announced the completion of a $100 million strategic financing round, led by 1kx and with participation from Tiger Global and others.
Note: There are 59 DAOs/organizations with clear markings in the top 100 addresses receiving the SAFE airdrop.
During the initial user airdrop period, 11,635 out of 43,575 eligible addresses actively claimed their SAFE airdrop. After a community vote conducted by Safe DAO governance, the remaining unclaimed tokens (approximately 16.1 million tokens) will be proportionally redistributed to the previously claimed addresses. Claimants will receive approximately 190.45% of the initial airdrop allocation.
Ecosystem Overview
The ecosystem built on Safe is thriving, with multiple projects completing multimillion-dollar financings. As an underlying protocol/framework that can host and build “mini-apps” projects, Safe’s open-source code repository has contributed to the Web3 community and built network effects.
Safe’s ecosystem landscape (2023) Source: Safe
Multis, a crypto startup built on Safe, announced a $7 million financing round in February 2022, led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Coinbase Ventures, MakerDAO, and others.
Coinshift, a Web3 infrastructure startup supported by Safe, raised $17 million in Series A funding in May 2022, led by Tiger Global, with participation from Sequoia India, among others.
Utopia, a DAO payroll system built on Safe, announced a $23 million Series A funding round in June 2022, led by Paradigm, with participation from Circle Ventures and Coinbase Ventures. However, Utopia later announced the closure of its service on November 6, 2023, emphasizing that this action does not mean the closure of the company but rather a shift away from its existing product and direction.
Choice of Vitalik and OpenAI CEO
Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, highly recommends multi-signature wallets. When mentioning multi-signature wallets, readers can only think of Safe, which indicates that Safe has built an intangible asset (brand) moat.
On May 12, 2021, Forbes reported that Vitalik transferred the majority of his Ethereum holdings, over 325,000 ETH (worth over $1.3 billion at the time), to a new wallet address generated through Gnosis Safe.
BlockBeats previously reported that Vitalik has recommended the use of multi-signature wallets multiple times:
1. On August 15, 2022:
Source: Vitalik’s Reddit
Worldcoin’s ecosystem wallet, “World App,” integrates with Safe. This integration, along with Uniswap, ENS, Circle, MoonPay, and Ramp Network, represents Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI’s, vision of the purest account abstraction/encrypted wallet.
Source: Worldcoin
Conclusion
Safe is most widely known as a “multi-signature wallet.” However, the co-founders of Safe state that it is not just a “multi-signature wallet.” The most accurate definition is that it is a composable smart account framework and a fully programmable smart account that can be used to cover any type of use case or user group through plugins.
As the pioneer in the new infrastructure race, Safe provides ecosystem builders and participants with vast imagination and potential, as there are no comparable benchmarks in terms of market value (MC) or fully diluted valuation (FDV).
Related Reports
– Educational Tutorial: How Secure Are Multi-Signature Wallets? Analysis of Advantages, Disadvantages, and Use Cases
– Security Alert: Lessons from the Theft of 20 Million OP: Mistakes That Any Multi-Signature Wallet User Could Make!
– “Hardware Wallets are Overrated” – Vitalik: Assets Should be Stored in Multi-Signature Wallets, with Most Keys Held by Trusted Parties