Author: 0xAA | People DAO

Twitter: @0xAA_Science

What is Gnosis Safe multisig wallet?

Gnosis has been developing blockchain-based fund management solutions since 2017. Gnosis Safe is the multi-signature wallet developed by Gnosis. It is the most trusted platform to manage digital assets on Ethereum and manages nearly $20 billion funds. Many DeFi projects and DAOs use it to mange treasury.

Key features of Gnosis Safe

• Multi-signature: users can fully customize how they or their team manage crypto assets, with the option to require a predefined number of signatures to confirm transactions. For example, 10 members controls the wallet together, and each transaction needs at least 8 members to sign.
• Maximum Security: contracts are audited and battle-tested.
• Apps support: users can directly interact with DeFi protocols from platform developed by Gnosis, called Safe Apps, such as uniswap, Curve, etc.
• WalletConnect: Gnosis Safe supports WalletConnect, which is convenient for users to interact with Web3 applications.
• Multi-chain support: Gnosis Safe supports 11 chains, including Ethereum, Polygon and BSC.

How to use Gnosis Safe

1. Create gnosis safe account

• Go to gnosis safe official website https://gnosis-safe.io and click “Open App” at right left corner. Click Create new Safe.

• Connect your wallet and choose which chain you want to use. I chose polygon network for illustration purpose (low gas fee).

• Enter name of the wallet.

• Add multisig holders, and choose # of signers required for each transaction. In my case, 2 multisig holders and every transaction need to be signed by 2 holders.

• Confirm wallet information.

• You successfully create a Gnosis Safe wallet.

• Note: this multisig wallet is only valid on selected chain. In my case, polygon. Please do not send asset from other chains to this address.

2. Transfer fund

• To receive fund, click “show QR“ or “Copy“ in upper left corner to copy Safe wallet address.

• Send tokens to the copied address. Your balance will be displayed shorty after the transaction.

• To send coins, click “New transaction” button and click Send funds.

• Type recipient address, select token, and type send amount. In my case, 1 Matic. Click “Review”.

• Confirm with one wallet (metamask).

• Confirm with another multisig holder’s wallet.

• Submit transaction.

• Token send successfully!

3. Interact with Dapps

• Gnosis Safe wallet integrate many Dapps, such as DEX and yield protocols. Moreover, Safe wallet support WalletConnect, which enables you to connect the wallet to any Dapps that support WalletConnect.

4. Interact with Contracts

• Safe wallet supports interaction with smart contract directly. You can click “New transaction“ button, and select “contract interaction“. Then you fill the contract address, contract ABI, function name, and function value. After that, the process is the same as sending tokens. Very convenient!

Summary

Gnosis Safe multisig wallet is a decentralized wallet that is adopted by many DeFi protocols and DAOs to manage their treasury.

• Pros: decentralized by having multiple holders, secure, easy to use, supports multi chains.
• Cons: not fully decentralized, since the number of multisig holders are typically far smaller than the number of users/members of the project. Moreover, multisig holders have advantage over non multisig holders.

In the next article, we will introduce a new and more decentralized tool for manage treasury: Gnosis Safesnap.