Safe (Safe Token / Safe{Wallet}, formerly Gnosis Safe) (SAFE) is the governance token of Safe, a smart-account (multisig) wallet infrastructure protocol.
Safe originated in 2018 as Gnosis Safe, a general-purpose smart contract wallet, and rebranded to Safe in 2022 after spinning out of GnosisDAO into an independent ecosystem. It is deployed as a native ERC-20 token on Ethereum, with a bridged implementation on Gnosis Chain at 0x4d18815d14fe5c3304e87b3fa18318baa5c23820. Safe smart accounts are used by individuals and institutions to custody and manage on-chain digital assets.
Safe differentiates itself as smart-account infrastructure securing more assets than most standalone DeFi applications hold, rather than competing as a yield-generating application itself.
As of Q1 2026, Safe smart accounts secured $35.25 billion in assets (over one-third of total EVM DeFi TVL), processed 4,779K ETH in quarterly transaction volume (+25% quarter-over-quarter), and surpassed 61.11 million cumulative accounts. The Safe organization's annualized recurring revenue exceeded $10 million in 2025, up fivefold year-over-year. This protocol revenue currently accrues to the Safe organization rather than to SAFE holders, whose token confers governance rights rather than a direct cash-flow claim.
SAFE is primarily a governance token, giving holders voting rights within SafeDAO over strategic ecosystem decisions such as treasury use and protocol direction.
Holders participate through on-chain governance proposals rather than staking, fee payment, or collateral use.
Total/max supply: 1,000,000,000 SAFE; circulating supply: approximately 775.3 million SAFE as of 2026-09-02.
Net token supply inflation is low, with signals indicating mild net supply contraction rather than material inflation.
SAFE launched via airdrop starting October 2022 (claim deadline December 27, 2022), distributed to roughly 55,000 Safe users, Safe Guardians, core team members, and investors.
Initial circulating supply at the September 27, 2022 token launch was 427 million SAFE. The token's on-chain contract deployment date, 2022-04-20, predates this public launch. A $100 million strategic funding round led by 1kx, with participation from Tiger Global, A&T Capital, Blockchain Capital, and Digital Currency Group among others, closed July 15, 2022, with proceeds directed to the newly formed Safe Ecosystem Foundation rather than to token holders.
Safe (SAFE) is deployed as a native ERC-20 token on Ethereum, which secures its network through proof-of-stake consensus.
A bridged implementation also exists on Gnosis Chain, at contract address 0x4d18815d14fe5c3304e87b3fa18318baa5c23820. Safe does not operate its own blockchain or validator set; it functions as an application-layer smart-account protocol built on top of Ethereum and other EVM-compatible networks, relying on those chains' underlying consensus for transaction finality.
Safe was co-founded by Stefan George, Richard Meissner, and Lukas Schor.
George co-founded Gnosis in 2015 and originally authored the multi-signature wallet code in 2017 that evolved into Gnosis Safe. Meissner authored the Safe smart contracts currently in use and leads Safe Research. Schor has served as President of the Safe Ecosystem Foundation since its inception.
Safe is maintained by the Safe Ecosystem Foundation, a non-profit foundation incorporated in Zug, Switzerland, which supports Safe's development and administers the project's grants program.
Core Contributors GmbH is a related entity referenced alongside the Foundation and Gnosis Ltd. in a March 2025 Memorandum of Understanding on collaboration between the three, and as a nominating body for a Strategy Steering Committee.
Safe is governed on-chain by SafeDAO, through which SAFE token holders vote on strategic ecosystem decisions.
A Strategy Steering Committee also exists as a governance body, with nomination rights split between the Safe Ecosystem Foundation and Core Contributors GmbH under a proposal referenced as SEP 49. The Safe Foundation additionally administers a grants program funded from its 15% token allocation, supporting ecosystem development.
In Q1 2026, the Safe Ecosystem Foundation launched a euro-denominated yield product, an EURCV vault, that reached $9 million in deposits. It also released "Safenet Beta," described as a decentralized transaction security network.
The Foundation reported shipping over 40 product and ecosystem updates during the quarter. In July 2025, an "Extensible Fallback Handler" upgrade let Safe smart accounts dynamically support new token standards, such as ERC-404, without wallet upgrades. In February 2026, Safe Labs removed roughly 5,000 malicious lookalike addresses identified through an address-poisoning campaign.
Safe's smart contracts have been audited across multiple versions, from v0.0.1 through v1.4.0, plus the Allowance Module, including a formal verification report for v1.0.0. Audits reportedly involved firms such as OpenZeppelin, Ackee Blockchain, and Certora.
In February 2025, a spoofed Safe{Wallet} UI transaction-signing flow was exploited in the ~$1.5 billion Bybit hack, targeting the front-end signing flow rather than the audited contracts; Safe subsequently shipped roughly ten UI and security hardening changes. On-chain liquidity for SAFE remains thin relative to its market capitalization, a structural risk flagged as high.