Safe Wallet Review 2024: Pros, Cons, & Features

Safe Wallet, formerly known as Gnosis Safe, is the most popular multi-signature smart contract wallet on the market.

With over $100B managed in Safes and notable users like Vitalik Buterin, you can bet that Safe has plenty going for it.

But don’t take that at face value. Let’s run through the platform and take a first-hand look at how it works:

Safe Wallet Overview

What is Safe Wallet?

Safe Wallet works by enabling multiple Ethereum-compatible accounts to set up an on-chain “smart” wallet to collaboratively manage funds. 

Safe Wallet has been launched on multiple Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchains. That is, other chains that handle Ethereum-style smart contracts. This includes Avalanche, Gnosis Chain, and several popular Layer 2s, with more to come.

This means it can handle all your assets from those chains, but none from other chains such as Solana or Bitcoin.

Setting up a Safe gives you a wallet that can require multiple signatures to perform any transaction. In other words, it’s set up so that no single person can make a withdrawal or transaction without the approval of others.

This is especially useful for crypto-centric business teams, DAOs, or even security-conscious individuals. Take, for example, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s reasoning for using a Safe wallet:

You can link almost any Ethereum-compatible wallet to a Safe account, including hardware wallets. They’ve also integrated a ton of popular dapps, so you can directly use them within the Safe Wallet user interface.

How does Safe Wallet work?

Setting up a Safe is a walk in the park for a crypto native. It’s a short and simple onboarding process via their web or mobile app. If you’re a crypto newbie, however, it might all look a little complex.

Users can choose any number of accounts to co-manage the assets at hand. They can also select a specific number of those accounts required to conduct a transaction. 

For example, you could create a Safe wallet for yourself + four business partners. The configuration can be set up to approve transactions with any 3 out of the 5 of you.

Key Features

• Multi-Signature Setup: Safe Wallet creates the crypto-equivalent of a multi-signature bank account. You can only make transactions if they’re signed off by the required number of people. That number is up to you to decide. This is perfect for teams such as DAOs. 
• Customizable Security Configurations: Users can choose their own configurations for the total number of accounts permitted, as well as the number of signatures required to make a transaction. 
• Wide wallet support: Users can use almost any Ethereum-compatible wallet, including hardware wallets, software wallets, or even other Safe Wallets.
• Integrated DeFi Access: Built-in popular DeFi apps make it easy to make transactions securely. Safe supportsmore than 200 popular dapps.
• Open-Source: Transparent and verifiable code, to make sure your assets are safe.
• Great Track Record: Over $100B in assets currently under management.
• Transaction Simulation: Safe Wallet can simulate transactions before submitting, so you know exactly what will happen before locking one in. 
• Non-Custodial: Safe wallets are completely decentralized and non-custodial – nobody can touch your funds except you and your fellow signers.

Safe Wallet Review: A First-hand experience

To try out the protocol, I decided to set up a simple Safe involving two accounts and requiring two digital signatures to process any transactions. That is, both myself and my [imaginary] business partner have to approve any transaction that goes out of the wallet.

Setting up a Safe

The Safe creation process was super straightforward: Select your blockchain network of choice, name your Safe, and add as many signers as you want. 

It appeared there was no small limit to the number of accounts you could add – I was able to add well over 25 if I wanted to.

From there, you simply choose how many of the accounts out of the total you want to require to make a transaction. In my case, it was nice and simple: 2 out of 2. However, you can do as many or as few as you like for your Safe.

Yeah, it’s that quick – just a few clicks, and I already had my very own (shared) Safe! 

Managing the Safe

From here, you simply load the appropriate funds into the account. Anyone who has our Safe address can send assets to it, just like any regular Ethereum account. The only difference is, that to move those assets, I’m going to need both the accounts to approve it.

The UI for a Safe is clean and intuitive. You can browse the assets in the safe easily, as well as check and manage the participating addresses. 

If you’re wondering whether or not you can add new signature accounts, or kick old ones off – yes, you can! Just keep in mind that you’ll need the minimum number of signatures to make any changes… In the unfortunate case that you can’t reach the threshold because someone (or their private key) goes missing, you won’t be able to add anyone new to take over. 

In my case, I’ve been a bit short-sighted and not planned for this scenario, since I require 2/2 signatures. If I or my business partner go missing, there’s nothing we can do. The funds are stuck in the Safe without two signatures to withdraw it.

Using dapps

I found it super useful that Safe has integrated more than 200 dapps into its UI. They’re at arm’s length, all the time. You also don’t need to worry about typing in the wrong URL and visiting a fake version of a dapp, since it’s right there.

Note: You can also use any dapp that’s not directly supported via WalletConnect.

To get a taste of what it’s like using the funds in my Safe, I decided to take the built-in dapp Sablier for a spin. This was an appropriate one to try out since it’s a go-to platform for streaming payments to users, stakeholders, or employees – something a business or DAO would do.

In my case, I wanted to simulate paying a contractor with USDC out of our Safe. To do this, I clicked on the Sablier app, set up a linear stream of 10 USDC to a new address (over a 7-day period), and submitted the transaction.

Now, Safe’s permissions come into play: This payment can’t be approved until both myself and my business partner sign for it.

First, I had to sign the transaction myself from my personal wallet. Then, my business partner also had to sign from their wallet, too. 

Once both digital signatures are submitted and confirmed by the wallet, one of us will then need to execute the transaction and pay the relevant network fees. This can be any account linked to the Safe

Note: This fee has to be paid out of the signer’s personal account, rather than the Safe account. For regular “send” transactions, the last signer will have to pay the transaction fee – the signature and execution step are rolled into one.

Mobile app 

I also took the mobile app for a whirl, to see what it’s like to use Safe on the go. 

This version of the platform was also surprisingly easy to use, with a breezy UI that even further simplifies the experience. There was nothing new or amazing on mobile that the web app didn’t have, but I could definitely see how it would be handy for teams to have it so that each member could authorize a transaction without a laptop.

This is where I also noticed that some scam tokens turned up in my Safe’s balances – which were also present in the web app. It appears that Safe Wallet already has a filter for tokens flagged as spam by EtherScan, however some still seem to get through this.

Safe Wallet Pricing

Safe Wallet itself doesn’t take any money to create a wallet. However, you’ll have to consider gas costs. 

A one-time gas fee is involved in setting up any Safe account, to deploy the smart contract to the blockchain. This fee increases with every account that is to be added to the wallet:

The dollar value of these fees will be specific to the chain you are using. Since I used Base Layer 2 for this test, this came out at a very low cost. However, if you use Ethereum, it could get a little pricey (check out our ETH gas fee tracker here).

Obviously, there’s also going to be a fee required when executing any transaction using the wallet’s funds. This is expected. However, what you may not expect is that transactions out of a Safe wallet typically cost more than a transaction coming from a regular wallet. They are also to be paid out of the signer’s personal wallet, rather than the Safe.

This is a small pain point – but most likely worth it for the security of using a Safe.

Safe Wallet Support

Safe Wallet is a non-custodial solution, so you’ll want to remember that no third party is holding these funds for you. 

If you mess up or lose one of the keys to your Safe wallet, you’re on your own – the ability you have to recover access is only as good as the measures you created during the setup process.

For everything else, Safe has a help center on its website, which details most of the frequently asked questions users will have about the platform. There’s also an AI chatbot, which was pretty quick and helpful when I had a question about the protocol.

Who is Safe Wallet for?

Safe Wallet is perfect for a range of advanced crypto users seeking a crypto-compatible multi-signature account solution. This ranges from individuals to organizations, and institutions. Safe has some great examples of several of these use cases – including current clients – on its official website.

Here’s a more general overview of who may benefit from a Safe wallet:

• DAOs: The entire premise of DAOs is in the name – decentralization is everything. Safe upholds this by allowing any number of participants to use a shared treasury account for a common goal, in a completely decentralized way.
• Crypto-Centric Businesses: Whereas decentralization isn’t as important for these organizations, it’s still highly useful to have a crypto-compatible multi-signature account. This provides a secure way for key employees to manage crypto funds, with the appropriate authorization.
• Security-Conscious Individuals: Individuals can use a Safe wallet as a way to secure their own account, so that spending cannot be done using just a single key. 

Who isn’t it for?

• Casual crypto users: Casual crypto users, especially individuals with a small sum of total holdings, most likely won’t need to use Safe. A hardware wallet or other methods can achieve sufficient security, without the more intensive application of a Safe wallet.

Safe Wallet Alternatives:

Safe Wallet vs. Hot Wallet & Hardware Wallet Combo

The combination of a hot wallet and hardware wallet is a great tool for individuals to keep their crypto secure. It allows you to keep a smaller amount of crypto at the ready for everyday needs, while keeping the bulk of it safely in cold storage. 

However, even for individuals this method has its limitations. The loss of a single private key is enough to lose access to your funds on most hardware wallets. On the other hand, a Safe can be set up to prevent this kind of scenario easily by linking more accounts for signatures. Even if one account is lost, the others can still access the funds – but only if they sign together.

The hot wallet and hardware wallet combo also doesn’t do much for collaborative needs, while a Safe wallet can link a virtually unlimited number of accounts. 

Safe Wallet vs. MPC Wallet as a Service (e.g. Fireblocks, Krayon)

Multi-Party Computation, or MPC, is a technology that enables multiple signatures by splitting up a wallet’s private key. 

Companies like Fireblocks and Krayon provide this as a service, making it easier to set up and more secure to use. These providers don’t hold any of the assets themselves, as a full custodian would. However, they do hold onto a minority fragment of the private key themselves.

By doing this, the company can ensure that:

• No transactions can be made without the minimum number of signatures.
• Funds are still recoverable if one of the other parties loses their fragment of the key.

MPC wallets also carry the advantage of privacy, in the sense that there is no on-chain information showing who is collaborating on the account. On the other hand, MPC solutions are much harder to add (or remove) additional signers, which Safe makes it easy to do. 

There is also often a cost to create and set up MPC wallets through a provider, unless you have the technical know-how to set one up yourself. 

Fireblocks is an extreme, institutional-grade example that costs upwards of $375 per month to administer an MPC wallet – for only 3 signers. Safe is completely free, aside from gas fees.

Safe Wallet vs. Full-Custody Asset Management (e.g. Anchorage)

When it comes to full-custody asset managers like Anchorage, they come with one critical downside – they have complete control of your funds. 

Although these parties can often be highly trusted, one always needs to account for a variety of extra risks. These could include the company mismanaging private keys, getting hacked, their business going under, rogue employees, and more. On top of the additional risks, there are management fees to pay.

Comparatively, a Safe has next to none of the above risks, nor the management fees. The one benefit of a custodian, however, is that you can’t lose your private key – the custodian will almost always be able to get you your funds, as long as you can prove who you are. 

This makes full custody arguably better for those with zero crypto expertise.

Is Safe Wallet Safe to Use?

Being a smart contract-based solution, it’s fair to have some concerns about trusting someone else’s code with your funds. However, it appears highly likely that Safes are dependent and secure, given their track record and numbers.

The sheer amount of assets in Safes today (over $100 billion) is a testament to that. Not to mention, the high-profile users – including major protocols – using Safe.

The code is also completely open-source and has been audited several times, by multiple smart contract auditors.

When Was Safe Wallet Founded?

Safe Wallet began as an internal project at Gnosis – an early project on Ethereum. Safe has evolved a ton over the last seven years to eventually become such a major player in the Ethereum ecosystem.

It was built as a multi-signature wallet at first to address the need for secure self-custody, during Gnosis’ ICO in 2017. Additional projects then began to pick up the platform more widely, gaining momentum to secure more than $1 billion worth of assets within a few years.

With the help of further development, Safe spun off from Gnosis to form its own ecosystem, seeking to transform every Ethereum account into a “smart” account. 

The governance and control of Safe was decentralized into SafeDAO in 2023. This uses the $SAFE token to manage updates to the protocol and develop further open-source smart account solutions.

$SAFE began trading on several major exchanges such as Coinbase and OKX in April 2024.

Gnosis itself has since become its own blockchain, merging its community with that of xDAI in 2021. It continues to fund and develop useful protocols including Safe, Cow Protocol, Conditional Tokens, and more.

Final thoughts on Safe

Safe Wallet was surprisingly easy and pleasant to use, given how robust and comprehensive it is as a platform. If you’re a native crypto user, you’ll probably have no problem setting up a multi-signature smart wallet for any needs you have.

Regular individuals most likely won’t have any major need for using a Safe. But anyone with a significant amount of crypto or a crypto-related business is likely to benefit from the security and benefits it provides. 

If you have crypto business needs – simply link a bunch of accounts to a safe, choose a minimum number of signatures for a transaction, and boom, you have a secure, crypto-specific business account for expenses and transactions.

With 12-figures in assets under management in Safe wallets, along with notable users such as Worldcoin and Vitalk himself, Safe has already established itself as a power product.

On the other hand, I’d like to see some extra features such as different permissions for different users and better spam token filters. Aside from that – it’s pretty damn good!

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Alex Miguel

Alex

Alex is a writer and DeFi enthusiast, with a background in economics. His passion is helping others to understand the next generation of digital finance.

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