What is Safe wallet?

Safe wallet is a crypto account run by a smart contract, best known as a multisig, where several owners share control and a set number must approve each transaction. It was called Gnosis Safe until 2022. Safe{Wallet} is the name of the app most people use to manage these accounts.

What is Safe wallet in crypto?

Safe's documentation describes the Safe Smart Account as a smart contract account with multi-signature functionality at its core. It holds funds and executes transactions on Ethereum, with a variant for layer 2 networks. Unlike a normal wallet controlled by one private key, the account is code on the blockchain that only acts when its rules are met.

Owners can be ordinary wallets, other smart contract accounts or passkeys. Optional add-ons called modules can add features such as spending allowances or recovery, and guards can check transactions before they run. The docs warn that both are security-critical, since a malicious module or guard could put funds at risk. Safe describes its stack as open source and modular.

Is Safe the same as Gnosis Safe?

Yes, it is the same product under a new name. According to Safe's own history, Gnosis, a prediction market project founded in 2015, built a multisig wallet in 2017 to secure funds from its token sale. Gnosis Safe launched in 2018 as a general-purpose smart account, and a web app for teams followed in 2019.

In July 2022 Gnosis Safe raised $100 million in a round led by 1kx and rebranded to Safe. In September 2022 SafeDAO and the SAFE token launched, and Safe became independent of Gnosis. Safe says it crossed $100 billion in assets secured in March 2024.

How does a Safe multisig work?

Each Safe has a list of owners and a threshold. A "2-of-3" Safe has three owners, and any two must confirm. One owner proposes a transaction, others review and sign, and once the threshold is reached, the transaction can be executed on the chain. Owners and the threshold can be changed later, but only with enough approvals. The general idea is covered in what is a multisig wallet.

What is Safe{Wallet} and what happened in the Bybit hack?

Safe{Wallet} is the interface, including the web app, that people use to create Safes, propose transactions and collect signatures. It is separate from the smart contracts underneath.

On February 21, 2025, the exchange Bybit lost about $1.5 billion in crypto from a Safe multisig, a theft the FBI attributed to North Korea. Safe said a forensic review found the attack came through a compromised Safe{Wallet} developer machine, used to propose a disguised malicious transaction. BleepingComputer reported investigators' findings that malicious JavaScript, served from Safe{Wallet}'s cloud storage, was changed two days before the theft to target Bybit and removed minutes afterward.

Safe said outside researchers found no flaws in its smart contracts. It rebuilt its infrastructure, rotated credentials and urged users to check carefully what they sign. The case showed that a multisig is only as strong as the screen signers rely on, a risk explained in what is blind signing.