Jack Kubinec

Macauley Peterson

The Bybit exchange was hacked for some $1.4 billion in ether this morning, marking the largest exploit in crypto history.&nbsp;



Research platform Arkham claims onchain sleuth ZachXBT submitted definitive proof linking the hack to North Korea-linked Lazarus Group. One further piece of evidence indicates the attack may have been years in the making.



The hacker <a href="https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb61413c495fdad6114a7aa863a00b2e3c28945979a10885b12b30316ea9f072c">transferred</a> some 400,000 ETH out of Bybit’s cold wallet and subsequently split it into dozens of other wallets. Bybit’s CEO Ben Zhou <a href="https://x.com/benbybit/status/1892963530422505586">pointed</a> to an exploit in the user interface (UI) of the company’s multisignature wallet, provided by Safe — a wallet provider used by a variety of large organizations in the Ethereum world.



“It appears that this specific transaction was musked, all the signers saw the musked UI which showed the correct address and the URL,” Zhou said. “Musked” refers to the transaction payload being obfuscated or spoofed.&nbsp;



According to crypto security firm Groom Lake, a Safe multisig wallet was deployed on Ethereum in <a href="https://etherscan.io/tx/0x06d2fa464546e99d2147e1fc997ddb624cec9c8c5e25a050cc381ee8a384eed3">2019</a> and on the Base layer-2 in <a href="https://basescan.org/tx/0x06d2fa464546e99d2147e1fc997ddb624cec9c8c5e25a050cc381ee8a384eed3">2024</a> with identical transaction hashes. Ethereum’s alphanumeric transaction hashes are 64 characters long, so deploying the same smart contract transaction hash twice should be mathematically impossible.



The same transaction hash appearing on both Ethereum and Base indicates an attacker could have found a way to make a single transaction valid on more than one network or could be reusing crypto wallet signatures or transaction data across networks, pseudonymous Groom Lake researcher Apollo said.



However, the Safe team does not think there is a link to the current exploit. “The transaction in question is the transaction deploying the singleton contract,” a Safe spokesperson told Blockworks. “It was deployed without EIP-155 to support easy cross-chain deployments. Replaying the singleton creation doesn’t pose any security risk.”



EIP-155 (Ethereum Improvement Proposal 155) was introduced in 2016 as a security measure to prevent transaction replay attacks across different chains. Before EIP-155, if a transaction was signed on one Ethereum-based network — e.g. Ethereum mainnet — it could be replayed on another Ethereum-compatible chain because the signature remained valid.



EIP-155 solved this by adding a chain ID to signed transactions, ensuring that a transaction intended for Ethereum cannot be valid on another chain like Base. This means that even if a private key is compromised, an attacker cannot reuse old signed transactions across different chains.



Alternatively, the hack could have resulted not from a flaw in Safe’s smart contracts, or a type of replay attack, but rather a UI manipulation or wallet infrastructure compromise — where signers unknowingly authorized contract modifications.



That would put it in the same class as the Radiant exploit of December 2023 and the March 2024 WazirX breach.



The main Safe user interface is currently offline as a precaution.



“We remain confident there’s no exploit in the official Safe {Wallet} frontend but if you need to transact, you can still manage your Safe using these alternative interfaces,” the Safe team <a href="https://x.com/safe/status/1893012725602885911">wrote</a> on X.



If Safe’s assessment is correct, this reduces the likelihood of a systemic vulnerability in Safe’s smart contracts.



“If it was, it won’t be Bybit,” the spokesperson added, implying that there are far larger Safe targets to go after. Safe collectively secures over $100 billion in digital assets across more than seven million smart accounts.



However, it still <a href="https://x.com/pcaversaccio/status/1892976342649466916">suggests</a> a security risk in how Safe transactions are reviewed and approved, especially by large institutions using multisigs.



Multisig signers should <a href="https://x.com/LefterisJP/status/1892984150665187375">verify</a> transaction payloads at the raw data level, not just the UI display. Meanwhile, every security eye in the industry is going to be on the attackers’ wallet trail. For the moment, the person or group responsible is the fourteenth <a href="https://x.com/jconorgrogan/status/1893019485100970094">largest</a> ETH holder in the world.



Updated Friday, February 21 at 3:40 pm ET: Added Arkham’s claim that Lazarus Group was behind the hack.



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$1.4B Bybit hack raises questions over Safe’s transaction security

New cross-chain solutions are tackling persistent challenges presented by Ethereum’s rollup-centric roadmap.



Safe’s Safenet, planned for release in 2025, aims to operate as a transaction processor network atop existing blockchains, offering execution guarantees for cross-chain transactions.



Safenet’s design — announced today — introduces a set of capabilities targeting longstanding issues in DeFi, such as speed, security and liquidity fragmentation. It reimagines transaction processing by unbundling execution and settlement, akin to VisaNet’s architecture.



At its core, Safenet aims to dramatically improve transaction efficiency, processing transactions in under one second thanks to <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/bellcurve/8dcb7122-c486-11ee-9d5a-1f6f0a61552c">an intents-based solver network</a>. This level of performance would bring cross-chain operations closer to real-time usability, allowing users to move assets or execute transactions between different blockchains almost instantaneously.



Read more from our opinion section: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/drop-traditional-bridges-for-interoperability">Want cheaper and safer interoperability? Drop traditional bridges</a>



Whether transferring tokens or interacting with dapps, delays in moving across chains have traditionally hindered such activity, leading to a siloed user experience.



“Safenet addresses DeFi’s biggest challenges: fragmentation, latency and complexity,” Lukas Schor, co-founder of Safe, <a href="https://safe.global/blog/introducing-safenet">said</a>.



By leveraging Safenet Processors, users gain access to instant liquidity and secure, composable transactions that span onchain and offchain networks.



The network is secured by user-defined policies and a decentralized validator network — staking the <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/safe">SAFE</a> token — and the system is geared towards providing robust protection against risks like address poisoning and other vulnerabilities.



Validators actively oversee processor activity, and can flag any malicious behavior. This oversight, combined with user-set transaction rules, creates a <a href="https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/defense_in_depth">defense-in-depth</a> security layer that reduces exposure to common threats.



On the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research/issue/post_07a45426-69f7-4e72-9bb6-c84e92857ebd">chain abstraction</a> front, Safenet’s ability to unify balances across chains represents a major step forward in usability. Instead of requiring users to manage separate wallets or bridge assets manually, Safenet plans to present a single, consolidated view of their holdings.



Current Safe wallets secure $112 billion in assets, 75% of which is on Ethereum. They already allow for switching between multiple networks, deploying the same Ethereum address across many chains, but Safenet extends the abstraction beyond EVM-based networks to incorporate non-EVM-compatible chains like Solana, according to the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/safe">Safe</a> team.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcH_ATJ03yGo39ncHv_5kkcAXpLj8tXs4oKIOst6h1Z8AGiqpZGy-3nFNVDr2_2MV9ERAyLvXyN6yDKCr65FVi6mtw9OHFeUdZ4S4nFBrFJvNjqlYIJ1lU3vZhBdul9F9gz72FOmQ?key=qOrp2o31eFStOc0xGp5HJ-YP" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Safe TVL over time | Source: <a href="https://dune.com/safe/all">Dune / Safe</a></figcaption></figure>



Safe expects to bridge the gap between onchain and off-chain ecosystems as well, for example by enabling users to interact with centralized exchanges and payment systems using the same unified asset balance. This flexibility simplifies asset management while expanding the ways users can engage with their holdings.



DEX activity accounts for about 5% of the Total Volume Processed (TVP) on Ethereum mainnet by Safe accounts, according to Richard Meissner, co-founder of Safe.



“The remaining volume is a mix of asset transfers, treasury management, DAO governance actions and complex DeFi operations like liquidity provisioning,” Meissner told Blockworks.



He notes that what differentiates Safe’s wallet from other solutions is its focus on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/safe-whitepaper-smart-accounts">providing smart accounts</a>.



“By advancing smart accounts, we offer features not possible with traditional EOA accounts like multisig, private key recovery [and] automation,” Meissner said.



Safe is betting that features like these will make it appealing for businesses to move more of their operations onchain.



A key component of Safenet&#8217;s functionality is its integration with <a href="https://erc7579.com/">ERC-7579</a>, a standard that defines interfaces and behaviors for modular smart accounts to ensure interoperability across different implementations or “modules.”



By adopting ERC-7579, Safenet can facilitate the unbundling of transaction execution and settlement, similar to how VisaNet operates in traditional finance.



To do so, Safe, in collaboration with Rhinestone, developed the <a href="https://docs.safe.global/advanced/erc-7579/7579-safe">Safe7579 Adapter</a>, which enables Safe accounts to comply with the ERC-7579 standard.



Such standards are crucial for interoperability. For instance, modules such as spending limits, role-based account access and recovery can be incorporated into Safe accounts.



Safenet is set for alpha release in Q1 2025, initially supporting cross-chain accounts and basic liquidity functions. By mid-2025, Safenet will introduce third-party processors and compatibility with the Safe Apps SDK, enabling new use cases such as off-exchange settlement and subscription services.



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Safenet is Safe’s bid for an ‘onchain VisaNet’

Donovan Choy

Today, enjoy the 0xResearch newsletter on Blockworks.co. Tomorrow, get the news delivered directly to your inbox. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">Subscribe to the 0xResearch newsletter</a>. 



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Averting disaster</h2>



There are about 1.38 million <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/glossary/#erc-20-token">ERC-20 tokens</a> in existence. But exchanges, naturally, support only a tiny fraction of those tokens for deposits and trading. <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/coinbase">Coinbase</a> caters to around 200.



If you sent one of the unsupported tokens into an exchange deposit address, you would be very disappointed to find it vanish into the aether (not to be confused with ether!).



Enter asset recovery. Coinbase’s in-house tool, launched in December 2023, was recently upgraded to support <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/base">Base</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Asset recovery is now available for Base. Users can now recover unsupported ERC-20 tokens mistakenly sent to their Coinbase account via Base. For more information head to: <a href="https://t.co/vDPQaYiTAF">https://t.co/vDPQaYiTAF</a> <a href="https://t.co/rm7sjPVqiF">https://t.co/rm7sjPVqiF</a>&mdash; Coinbase Assets 🛡️ (@CoinbaseAssets) <a href="https://twitter.com/CoinbaseAssets/status/1839738260311990538?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 27, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



According to a spokesperson, the tool will allow users to recover some 4,000 distinct ERC-20 tokens erroneously sent to Coinbase addresses over the years.



The US dollar value of all that previously marooned crypto was not disclosed, but if you were the unwitting Coinbase client with assets cast asunder, you may be in luck.



Customers can recover eligible assets and send them to a self-custodial wallet, although for recoveries over $100, “a small administrative fee” applies, along with network fees (deducted from the user’s ether balance).



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Sygnum’s Safe Solution</h3>



What if, after you recover some castaway crypto from Coinbase and sent it to your <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/safe">Safe</a>, you suffer another sad misfortune and misplace a private key to your multisig?



Today, Sygnum Bank switched on a module for Safe’s Recovery hub that could come to the rescue.



Sygnum is the first bank to offer this service, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/safe-social-recovery-eases-private-key-management">in development since last year</a>, which provides an institutional-grade recovery option for users who lose access to their Safe wallets. When designated as a recoverer on Safe’s platform, Sygnum can restore wallet access, thus addressing a thorny problem in the crypto space.



Forgotten keys often result in inaccessible funds, and somewhere north of 900,000 ETH — worth billions of dollars — may have been irrevocably stranded due to lost keys, the bank estimates.



The safe module is an alternative to relying on social recovery methods, such as sharing private key fragments with friends and family, or managing personal backups.



And you don’t have to trust the Swiss bank to designate it as a third-party recoverer. Importantly, Safe’s design allows the owner to cancel any recovery attempt through onchain veto rights in the case a bogus recovery is attempted. The tool is designed to be flexible, allowing users to set multiple recoverers, and also features additional security measures like time delays.



The service is designed to be compliant with regulatory requirements, requiring identity verification (<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/kyc">KYC</a>) for both the setup and recovery process.



That may rub some the wrong way, but Martin Burgherr, Sygnum’s chief clients officer, assures that the bank takes “appropriate security measures to maintain the required security of personal data and ensure its confidentiality.”



In the future, one might imagine a more Web3 identity alternative that uses zero-knowledge proofs to allow clients to provide selective disclosure. That’s something the bank is watching, Burgherr told Blockworks.



Key management remains a challenge for many, but Sygnum and Safe are working toward a practical solution that retains the concept of self-sovereignty for both institutional and individual users.



— Macauley Peterson 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">It’s pronounced &#8216;swee&#8217;</h2>



I opened up Twitter today and all over the timeline was Sui.



The MoveVM L1 is <a href="https://x.com/EmanAbio/status/1840782691652034660/photo/1">coming up 6th</a> in daily trading volumes, a Sui bridge connecting to EVM-based chains is going <a href="https://x.com/SuiNetwork/status/1840829418455126182">live</a> today on mainnet, and the SUI token has <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/">rallied</a> this week into the top 20 tokens by market cap at $5.2 million.



The armchair analyst kind of way to explain this type of sudden burst in growth is to look at how much Sui is giving out in terms of liquidity incentives.



As far as I can tell, that number is not officially reported. But we can make some guess-timates based on Twitter posts:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Navi Protocol, the top lending market on Sui, is getting <a href="https://x.com/navi_protocol/status/1838235899949134315">520,000 SUI</a> ($936k) for two weeks. </li>



<li>Scallop, the second-largest lending market on Sui, is receiving about <a href="https://x.com/Scallop_io/status/1840688487982608846">170,000 SUI</a> ($314k) on a weekly basis.</li>



<li>Suilend, the third-largest lending market, is doling out <a href="https://x.com/suilendprotocol/status/1838375314055139454">426,195 SUI</a> over two weeks.</li>
</ul>



Together, that’s a weekly average of about 643k SUI. If we assume that 15 Sui dapps have the liquidity tap turned on, that bill comes up to something like 77.2 million SUI ($139 million) over the last two months.



That is a lot of money for a very short period of time.&nbsp;



Again, that is just a guess, but with that much money up for grabs, it does explain why Sui’s TVL has seen an up-only direction:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXehFPDwrDPtErteZr3IxzNFXJpKp-BYaUuYTlU4igps7aaAL4jkpq4BIPKOAeA7EAluty36mMxut108Wnm5_qrMzOgBt7fJRb3X3ZSuZ6Lt848tMw9A2Lv5clCLka_LMrSqAiuKWBNuCJ59-TXabI7JiV8N?key=imRRQbvv5W89unYTWykNRQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/Sui">DeFiLlama</a></figcaption></figure>



That is not to take anything away from the technological design of Sui, which I&#8217;m sure is impressive.&nbsp;



Like all new L1s on the block, Sui is fast. Its founders have <a href="https://youtu.be/d4T0vLwTbxA">claimed</a> on the 0x Research podcast the chain’s parallelized execution design allows horizontal scalability to be “infinite,” thus rendering Vitalik’s <a href="https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2021/05/23/scaling.html">blockchain trilemma</a> “irrelevant.”



Sui does not have to grapple with the multitude of scalability problems that plague older chains like Ethereum. It doesn’t have to deal with the kind of political turmoil stirred when a new up-and-coming researcher like Max Resnick comes in and questions the overarching multiyear-long roadmap and proposes a radical idea of his own (multiple current proposers).&nbsp;



Sui’s fee markets are also segmented and use auctions to <a href="https://docs.sui.io/concepts/tokenomics/gas-pricing">ensure</a> stable network fees globally, even when SUI’s price spikes up or down. This multidimensional fee market contains gas spikes to local fee markets. It’s a similar idea to one <a href="https://www.umbraresearch.xyz/writings/toward-multidimensional-solana-fees">Solana</a> has been talking about to explore solving its many network outages in earlier years <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-dropped-solana-transactions">due to transaction spam</a>.



— Donovan Choy 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Chart of the Day</h2>



USDC transfers on Base:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf16rFN3LLcKGGdTzl0j5tYzzz3Jp3AxyeNSlcJNzgcDmaGutsEfk53TTyeKHsOhp_3YcY2fTgiNP1B427EhlMEvtr9lBrj0-OFN30we1EAqio1yCp5EZjirERsyLqxzWpEa0KXDSY1aYiAWLPvQgR_ida8?key=imRRQbvv5W89unYTWykNRQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://dune.com/queries/2291768/3755580">Dune</a> (h/t Sebastien Derivaux)</figcaption></figure>



Base’s share of total USDC transfer volumes across major EVM networks is hitting a second consecutive weekly peak over Ethereum mainnet —&nbsp;60.2% share this time. It’s not clear what onchain activity is driving the surge.



My first hunch was memecoins, yet Base’s memecoins do not drive that much trading volume. Its top memecoin, BRETT, <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/brett-2">generated</a> $44 million in trading volume over the last 24 hours. For context, total USDC transfer <a href="https://dune.com/queries/2291768/5147382">volumes</a> in the last week of September was $75.8 billion.



Other relevant variables may include the revamp of Coinbase’s Web3 smart wallet, which lets users send USDC (and EURC, cbBTC) for free, or the <a href="https://x.com/base/status/1833222011176554573">conclusion</a> of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/base-kicks-off-onchain-summer">Base’s three-month long “Onchain Summer” </a>campaign which distributed 300+ ETH to builders and generated $5 million revenue for creators.



— Donovan Choy



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Saving self-custody from bone-headed blunders

The July 4th Ethereum All Core Developers (ACD) call was a mellow affair focused on updates around implementation of the next Ethereum upgrade, Pectra.



Although several clients are making headway, the launch of Devnet-1 is being delayed until a greater number of clients are prepared. Client teams, expecting to be short staffed as developers attend the EthCC conference in Brussels, are looking to launch Devnet-1 in one to two weeks.



A theme on the call was hand wringing over Pectra scope creep.



Core developers refined the account abstraction-focused EIP-7702&#8217;s, which was a major topic on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-upgrade-account-abstraction-proposal">the last ACD call</a>. A breakout subcommittee meeting worked out a way forward, to keep Externally Owned Accounts (EOA) more flexible, while addressing outstanding concerns previously raised.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-upgrade-account-abstraction-proposal">The jury is still out on Vitalik’s account abstraction proposal</a>



The new modifications are anticipated to be included in Devnet-2, and Devnet-1 will reflect the current specifications of EIP-7702. But the new changes get 7702 very close to a finished specification, according to Ethereum Foundation researcher Ansgar Dietrich.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What should Ethereum mainnet be?</h3>



The discussion then turned to EIP-7212, which has garnered support due to its potential to enhance user experience in key and wallet management.



This improvement introduces support for the <a href="https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2018/08/21/a-tale-of-two-elliptic-curves/">r1 curve</a>, a cryptographic algorithm widely used in secure communications and digital signatures.



EIP-7212 aims to simplify key and wallet management for users, reducing complexity and improving ease of use.



Hadrien Croubois, a smart contract engineer at OpenZeppelin pointed to the demand for r1 signatures coming from <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/account-abstraction">account abstraction</a> work, particularly the desire to use a smartphone as a hardware wallet.



That’s precisely why Daniel Lehrner, developer for the Besu client, said his team is “definitely in favor of including it,” noting that this algorithm is supported by nearly all mobile phones. “So for us, it definitely makes sense to allow them to use that instead of a traditional [hardware wallet].”



Pseudonymous Geth developer Lightclient pushed back on the idea of adding a new precompile to Ethereum’s execution layer, flagging several details yet to be resolved.



“It’s not a difficult thing to implement, but Pectra is already mega, and at some point we need to ship Pectra and stop adding things, and it seems like we’re already way past that point,” Lightclient said on the call.



Danno Ferrin, an independent contributor, noted that while it would be better to include the r1 curve at the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/evm">EVM</a> level, that would delay it by at least a year and a half. Meanwhile, its support from major tech industry players such as Google Passkeys, should make it worth pushing sooner at the protocol level.



The debate underscored a broader theme at play: the need to balance new EIPs and features against the already extensive scope of Pectra.



Geth’s Marius van der Wijden, who is usually grumpy about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_creep">scope creep</a>, posited that such a feature may no longer be needed on mainnet at all, because no one is using smart contract wallets due to their operational costs.



“In general I’m in favor of it, it’s just I think there’s an argument to be had,” van der Wijden said, adding, “in my view we should focus on getting functionality onto rollups and focus everyone on blob scalability, and not focus too much on the EVM feature set on L1.”



But Richard Meissner from the Safe smart contract wallet team said they still see plenty of reasons to improve the user experience at the base layer of Ethereum.



“At least in the current state, one is not perceived as ‘we want to move away from L1’. If we as an ecosystem agree on this I think this would be a little bit of a mindset shift,” Meissner said. “A lot of teams are still on L1 and a lot of teams do prefer to have better UX and r1 will enable this.”



Despite the generally positive reception, a formal decision on inclusion of the r1 curve precompile in Pectra has been postponed until the next ACD call in two weeks.



Updated July 22, 2024 at 5:30 pm ET: A previous version of this article identified Danno Ferrin as Swirlds Labs&#8217; chief software engineer whereas he is an independent contributor. 



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Ethereum devs weigh mainnet features against rollup push

Bessie Liu

SafeDAO, the organization governing the smart wallet platform Safe, may soon vote on the possibility of making its SAFE token transferable.



SAFE tokens, introduced in 2022, are a form of digital assets designed for governance within the SafeDAO ecosystem. Over the past two years, recipients of these tokens have been able to use their allocations to vote on proposals that affect the development and operational decisions of the SafeDAO platform.



Initially, these tokens were non-transferable; they couldn’t be bought, sold or traded on any platform. This design choice was likely aimed at ensuring that only stakeholders with a long-term interest in the platform’s success could influence its direction, rather than speculative traders.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-launches-cctp-solana">Solana welcomes Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol</a>



If enacted, the decision to make SAFE tokens transferable will mark a notable shift in SafeDAO’s strategy. Allowing transfers will increase liquidity, making it possible for people to buy and sell SAFE tokens, and will widen participation in governance by attracting a larger and more diverse group of token holders.



André Geest, the head of governance at <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/safe">Safe</a>, told Blockworks that this newfound flexibility could allow the project’s DAO treasury to fund interesting projects within the ecosystem. It could also enable the organization to set up a rewards program and incentivize the usage of safe smart accounts.



“The token also plays a role in this future design space,” Geest said. “When you think about security abstraction, the token could play a role in curating registries. When it comes to payment abstraction, it could help facilitate fee transfers, for instance.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Making sure tokens are safe</h2>



An initial vote to make SAFE tokens transferable in 2022 <a href="https://snapshot.org/#/safe.eth/proposal/0x1b48a83c44e323275a605b244a05bde89918fb9ec86be7bb83792eb26e544441">failed</a> after some community members <a href="https://forum.safe.global/t/sep-2-community-initiative-to-unpause-token-contract-enabling-transferability/1131/236">said</a>, amid hundreds of forum replies, that SafeDAO should first more clearly define its mission and operations.



Geest explained that the 2022 vote hadn’t passed due to a combination of both internal and external factors.



“It was seen that the DAO was not mature enough, in the sense that it didn’t yet have a North Star. Also, one could say that the DAO didn&#8217;t have a market fit or a product fit,” Geest said.&nbsp;



Additionally, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-meltdown-timeline">following the collapse of FTX</a>, many participants <a href="https://x.com/corbpage/status/1589625760331223040?s=20">believed</a> token transfers should be suspended until market conditions improved.



In response, a second proposal <a href="https://snapshot.org/#/safe.eth/proposal/0xdcd7f8cb197c7132296d802e538df2a565fbe4f8af400f1afbed06b54a808060">passed</a>, outlining five milestones the DAO should meet before SAFE tokens would become transferable — ending the SAFE claim period, ratifying a constitution and then a governance framework, voting on how funds should be spent and deciding on the token’s utility.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/safe-social-recovery-eases-private-key-management">Safe social recovery eases private key management</a>



Fifteen months later, SafeDAO has finally ticked off all five of the milestones, and a Snapshot vote is slated to go live that would make SAFE transferable.&nbsp;



Luuk Weber, a SafeDAO delegate with experience in multiple <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/daos">DAOs</a> dating back to 2019, called SafeDAO’s milestone system the “most structured approach I&#8217;ve seen in any DAO when it comes to aligning on operating logic prior to token transferability.”



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Today, a proposal to make the SAFE token transferable has entered the review phase of Safe governance. Should it be approved in the forthcoming governance vote, <a href="https://twitter.com/safe?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@safe</a> will have a transferable token as early as April 23. The only steps left after today are the following: 1. At… <a href="https://t.co/qsEy2cVARM">pic.twitter.com/qsEy2cVARM</a>&mdash; Daniel (@danftz) <a href="https://twitter.com/danftz/status/1772262229485781183?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 25, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“A lot of work has gone into these milestones from a lot of people, there was really heavy lifting from all parts, I think there’s genuinely a very positive sentiment to the progress that has been made, and the progress Safe has made with the product,” Geest said. 



Outside of the DAO, Safe has continued its development of smart accounts that make use of tools like account abstraction to let users <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/safe-web3auth-ethereum-smart-accounts">create wallets with only an email</a>. Worldcoin <a href="https://worldcoin.org/blog/product/composability-world-app-protocols-powering-worldcoin-first-wallet">uses</a> Safe to create wallets for its users inside of the World App.



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SafeDAO may finally vote to make SAFE tokens transferable

A major impediment to Web3 mass adoption remains the friction of using a crypto wallet, one that makes the user experience convenient while also keeping assets safe.



Some of the problems are technical — private key management, multiple blockchains, fiat on-ramps — but many shortcomings stem from unintuitive design.



Zeal, a new entrant into the wallet space, aims to tackle both. Developed by an 11-person team of product and engineering pros from Revolut, Spotify and Coinbase, the wallet <a href="https://twitter.com/zealwallet/status/1737866933985595819">demonstrates</a> features that should appeal to Web3 newcomers and veterans alike.&nbsp;



Project lead Hannes Graah (pronounced like “gray”) first became curious about the crypto scene in 2015 while working at Spotify, and got more engaged with Ethereum in 2017 as the growth lead at neobank <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/revolut">Revolut</a>. But it was only on the heels of 2020’s DeFi summer that his crypto journey began in earnest.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/will-defi-summer-return">DeFi summer is over. Will it ever return?</a>



“All of a sudden, all these things that used to be promises on white papers or ideas turned out to actually be tangible products,” Graah told Blockworks.



“The financial building blocks of traditional finance now existed also in decentralized shapes and forms — the zero-to-one moments of trading as an AMM, of lending as lending protocols — those are the core pillars of traditional finance, and now they existed also in a decentralized shape,” he said.



Graah and a few colleagues first launched DeFi protocol Gro, which was a decentralized risk and yield tranching protocol, organized as a <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/dao">DAO</a>. But as interest rates fell, it became difficult to attract capital and make fully automated on-chain strategies competitive with off-chain options.&nbsp;



The Gro DAO <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gro-dao-shutdown-total-value-locked-defi-sector">recently voted to wind down</a> and is allowing members to <a href="https://medium.com/gro-protocol/beyond-gro-dao-winding-down-f078dd85f9e4">redeem</a> capital from its treasury.&nbsp;



“We always had an idea that we wanted to build something that lets normal people access <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/defi">DeFi</a>, and we started thinking about that in the context of yields, but now DeFi yields and [traditional finance] yields have to some degree converged,” Graah explained.



As interface builders for Revolut, the next logical step was to tackle the broader challenge of how to make DeFi apps more accessible to newcomers.



“Revolut experiences, like neobanks in <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/web2">Web2</a>, are highly curated. They are king-made specific services, often built by the developer of the neobank,” Graah said. “Web3 is open finance where you have access to all kinds of products that are built, and right now we don&#8217;t do any curation of that.”



Zeal is a browser wallet, like <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/metamask">MetaMask</a>, and will connect anywhere MetaMask does. A mobile version is also in the works. But there are some key differences.



The <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/wallets">wallet</a> will route token trades via 1inch and 0x aggregators to find the best price, and it handles multichain transfers with built-in bridging using Socket.tech.



It launches with zero-fee fiat on- and off-ramps to connect to users’ bank accounts in the UK and wider Europe.



Today, most users must use a crypto exchange intermediary that sometimes raises red flags with banks, or dedicated on-ramp services that charge fees.



“What boggles my mind is that now, 15 years after the Bitcoin white paper [which] said that it was going to be peer-to-peer digital cash — and I still can&#8217;t just send you some digital dollars today,” Graah said.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-evolution-white-paper">How Bitcoin has evolved since Nakamoto’s white paper debut</a>



But he goes much further.



“Why shouldn&#8217;t you be able to pay for a coffee with tokenized treasuries? Why are there these weird walls between different asset classes, when all asset classes should be liquid and interchangeable — you should be able to use your asset classes to spend on whatever.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Addressing wallet pain points</h2>



Zeal is a self-custody wallet but users don’t need to store a seed phrase. It onboards users with a passkey, such as one generated by the fingerprint sensor on a phone or computer.



In the background, the wallet deploys <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/safe">Safe</a> smart contract wallets to every EVM chain it supports. It also abstracts away gas tokens — the smart contract deployment happens without the user having to worry about obtaining any ether.



If you want to use a new <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/evm">EVM</a> chain, the same wallet address will be there waiting. That’s a neat trick —&nbsp;dealing with cross-chain Safe deployments <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/20m-tokens-lost-as-market-maker-wintermute-takes-blame">once tripped up major market maker</a> Wintermute, resulting in a multimillion dollar loss.



“We&#8217;re now at a point where all the technologies are finally in place to build the product experiences that can deliver things for people,” Graah said.



Safe itself is also working on bringing better UX for end users, with <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gnosis-visa-debit-card-debut">integrations like Gnosis Pay</a> that provide users an IBAN and physical debit card.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">&#39;&#39;2024 will be the year that seed phrases can finally become a historical practice for most.&#39;&#39; Gnosis Co-Founder <a href="https://twitter.com/tw_tter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@tw_tter</a> shared her views in <a href="https://twitter.com/CoinDesk?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CoinDesk</a>&#39;s Blockchain Tech Predictions for 2024 article! Read the full article here 👇<a href="https://t.co/r1GkPe7gGk">https://t.co/r1GkPe7gGk</a>&mdash; GnosisDAO (@GnosisDAO) <a href="https://twitter.com/GnosisDAO/status/1737827575790243885?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 21, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Zeal plans to offer cards for point-of-sale transactions as well, but its first iteration focuses on the wallet experience, including things like “safety checks” to help users avoid scams and mistakes —&nbsp;features which currently require additional extensions such as <a href="https://www.joinfire.xyz/">Fire</a>.



By using Safe, an open-source standard securing billions of dollars, users gain peace of mind.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/safe-web3auth-ethereum-smart-accounts">Safe wants Ethereum users to create wallets with emails — not seed phrases</a>



“If, let&#8217;s say, the worst case scenario — Zeal disappears off the face of the Earth — then it&#8217;s still just a normal, good old Safe,” Graah said.



All of this boils down to making cryptocurrency more useful to normal, non-technical users. That’s not just good business, but good policy, and will appeal to regulators, Graah said.



“If we keep on building wallets and treating cryptocurrencies like it&#8217;s a casino, then it&#8217;ll also be considered a speculative asset in a casino,” he said.



“We have to make cryptocurrency into money and make it useful so that it&#8217;s not just something that&#8217;s exciting during a bull market, but it&#8217;s something that I can use in my daily life.”



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Gone crypto: From Revolut to Zeal

Wallet infrastructure provider Safe has collaborated with digital asset bank Sygnum and cryptocurrency recovery group CoinCover, to introduce Safe{RecoveryHub} — a handful of social recovery options for crypto wallets.



Lost or forgotten private keys has left an estimated <a href="https://github.com/jconorgrogan/Lost-ETH">$1.92 billion worth of ether</a> in the lurch. When a user first signs up for a crypto wallet, they generate a public key — a string of random letters and numbers — with which they can receive crypto, and a private key, used to send or otherwise prove ownership of the tokens by cryptographically signing transactions.



Key management systems in Web3 have very few recovery solutions, meaning that if a user loses their private key, they will no longer be able to access their assets.&nbsp;



“Social recovery” has been the exception. The point is to provide a means to recover a missing private key through “recoverers” such as families, friends and collaborators.



Safe{RecoveryHub} users can provide recoverers access to their accounts only in the event that a recovery is taking place. They will also be able to set up more than one recoverer for added security, similar to how a crypto wallet operate as a 2/3 multisig, for example.



Lukas Schor, the co-founder of Safe told Blockworks that Safe{RecoveryHub} consists of two main components. The first is a Safe module that enables the execution of recovery transactions for the popular multisig solution.



The social recovery process, in this instance, is initiated when a user loses access to their Safe and depends on their previously selected recovery setup option.



“When the user utilizes their own, fully self-custodial setup, they can go through every step of the process through our interface or alternatively fully on-chain today and create the recovery transaction, replacing lost access keys with new keys that the user controls,” Schor said. “When the user chooses a third-party option, then there likely will be some authentication or identification process before the third party will initiate the recovery on behalf of the user.”



Once the recovery transaction is created, the user will have an option to veto the transaction. If they do not do so, then the recovery transaction will be executed and they will be able to generate new owner keys, which will allow them to access their smart accounts again.



Schor notes that the <a href="https://github.com/gnosis/zodiac-modifier-delay/tree/main">timelock module</a> used for social recovery has been built by the Gnosis Guild, and has been used and in production for multiple years now.&nbsp;



“Only the user, individual or organization, can activate [or] deactivate the module and set the parameters. Only the Safe account can cancel any recovery attempt. Only the set recoverer can initiate a recovery transaction,” Schor said.



Martin Koeppelmann, co-founder of Gnosis, told Blockworks that technology must account for human error, as simple mistakes can have catastrophic consequences.&nbsp;



Safe’s “framework for recovery options is an important step towards further adoption,” Koeppelmann said. “What is equally important is that it’s done in a way so that users don’t have to make compromises about still being in full control of their funds.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Previous attempts at social recovery</h2>



Safe’s is not the first company that has attempted social recovery. Hardware wallet firm Ledger similarly <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ledger-delays-recover-service">attempted to introduce social recovery</a> earlier this year.&nbsp;



Ledger users had the option to provide KYC information to custodians, and their private keys would be split into three different parts, stored separately on what they said are “cryptographically secure” Hardware Security Modules.



In the case of Safe, a user could choose to trust a custodian or a third party to store their keys, but they also offer the users the choice to store their keys with family members or friends.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/Kwss-pdcLfr5pM0iBoo_Q-xfXNWQSMPR3gqwe-u1WsfoHIhjzH1WiNveu8CJtO4lX8JTjT2NLpKzemzWVc_7HEv4xs6O3c4NnXLOqi6wtgPCZH65H1fXOTdAlV3SiZn7XjfdFEwrzYFb-_C8pX2XhDI" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Safe</figcaption></figure></div>


Schor notes that there is no single way to solve the issue of recovery in the Web3 space, and the Safe{RecoveryHub} is just one viable solution.&nbsp;



He adds that there are larger issues around of recovery schemes, such as limitations around privacy, accessibility and availability — particularly for new users.&nbsp;



“From highly heterogeneous use cases like investing, social networking, and gaming to a highly diverse set of users ranging from everyday individuals and professionals to organizations, recovery needs to be able to cater all these different needs,” he said.&nbsp;



This sentiment is shared by Hannes Graah, the founder and builder of the Zeal wallet, who notes that self-custodial arrangements should be easier to use than a normal bank in order to achieve mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies.



“It’s promising to see Safe’s social recovery initiative consider a wide range of trust models from trusted parties like family and friends to backup devices and not simply assume that everyone has a close circle they can rely on,” Graah said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Advances around account abstraction</h2>



Social recovery is focused on key management and it should not be confused with the wider work that is being done around ERC-4337, or <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/account-abstraction">account abstraction</a>.



The purpose of ERC-4337 is to enable a more secure and user-friendly method for managing Ethereum accounts. The model allows users to execute transactions, including smart contract interactions, directly from their wallet. This enhances security and simplifies the process, making Ethereum more accessible and safer to use.



Read More: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-erc4337-account-abstraction-smart-contract">Ethereum’s ERC-4337 Account Abstraction Smart Contract is Live</a>



ERC-4337 is more of a stepping stone that can enable tools such as socially recoverable multisigs.



For example, if a wallet holder dies (and therefore their account has been inactive for a set period of time), account abstraction could enable funds to be transferred to a beneficiary automatically.



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Safe social recovery eases private key management

Sebastian Sinclair

San Francisco-based peer-to-peer startup Utopia Labs said Monday it would wind down all services beginning next month in a move that’s being canvased as a pivot away from its current business model.



“For the supporters of Utopia — we&#8217;re not shutting down the company, rather, moving away from our existing product and our existing direction,” Kaito Cunningham, Utopia’s CEO said in a statement.



All services will be suspended on Nov. 6, though provisions have been put in place for users to export financial data, a company banner on its website reads.



Having secured significant funding of $23 million in June 2022 from prominent investors, including Paradigm, Circle and Coinbase, the decision to discontinue its product offerings raises questions about Utopia&#8217;s future endeavors.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/utopia-labs-crypto-payments">Cunningham told Blockworks</a> in August it could be a decade before crypto payments gain significant momentum. He labeled the current state as far from reality, pointing to regulatory ambiguity as one of the challenges.



Initially developed in secret in 2013 and formally released in November 2019, Utopia touts itself as a crypto payment and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stablecoins">stablecoin</a> offramp/onramp. Its main value proposition centers around facilitating on-chain funds to off-chain counterparties.



Use cases include everything from companies seeking to pay their employees in digital assets by attempting to reduce friction among middlemen to venture capital funds sending USD Coin (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/usdc">USDC</a>) to portfolio companies.



Utopia&#8217;s solution was developed using <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/safe">Safe</a>, a decentralized custody and asset management system based on <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a>. Utopia also collaborated with Bridge, a platform assisting developers in transitioning between dollar denominations, encompassing stablecoins, to facilitate its financial transfers.



As of this week, gasless transactions will be turned off while the platform endeavors to respond to support messages. No bugs are expected to be fixed by its engineering team, while its platform will remain “freely available for use until the end of the month.”



Further details on the company’s pivot are expected to be shared in the coming weeks and months, Cunningham said.



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Utopia Labs to sunset services next month, signaling business model shift

Safe, previously known as Gnosis Safe, is developing a standard with the goal of transitioning the Web3 space to modular smart accounts.



As Ethereum co-founder contended in a June blog post, smart accounts are critical to bringing on more users into the blockchain Web3 space. A smart account, in essence, enhances how a user manages their digital assets via the use of smart contracts. 



Richard Meissner, co-founder of Safe, told Blockworks that when the team began its work, it sought ways to extend smart account functionality.&nbsp;



“The challenge was that these modules bring an inherent risk because the more powerful it is, the more you expose your underlying logic and your account could be abused,” Meissner said.&nbsp;



With growing interest from the Web3 community in account abstraction and smart contract wallets over recent months, Meissner said it was a good opportunity to begin delving into these problems.



Along with co-founder Lukas Schor, Safe released a <a href="https://github.com/safe-global/safe-core-protocol-specs/blob/main/whitepaper.pdf">whitepaper</a> for a “Safe Core Protocol” that explores different ways to streamline <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/what-are-smart-contract-wallets">smart account</a> solutions. Beyond general security concerns, the whitepaper addresses potential solutions to ecosystem fragmentation.



Today, there are multiple ecosystem initiatives around smart accounts and smart contract wallets, all of which have slight differences between them. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/smart-contract-wallets-will-make-defi-less-cumbersome">Instadapp</a> and <a href="https://metamask.io/news/latest/account-abstraction-past-present-future/">MetaMask</a>, for example, are all looking at ways to incorporate the technology into their respective infrastructure stacks.



Meissner told Blockworks that “over the next couple of months, it will be an important task to look at where we can further line up to prevent fragmentation.



Seeking a solution



The whitepaper introduces the concept of a “Manager” which is responsible for managing “Accounts”, “Registries” and “Modules.” 



An abstraction layer — a separation layer between different components of a system — is used to navigate the complexities between fragmentation, interoperability and security.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/U2XUpTEz1jvvwO1x-Pb1eo8SCG7pIbiVl2Rthnsa0MVm8Ah-oxwK0iJ-S_FrznJL4xNR3YNjCJ-MPof30R5Dojw8LNAzWZZV_unn36NYkqH4439WO2r2aqK8vaT-isfN5CmPJTcNFcEpw5RbNvUEKR8" alt=""/></figure>



Per the paper, smart account users can choose to opt into a protocol by enabling the Manager, which will then give it access to functionalities enabled through Modules. To ensure the security of these Modules, Registries exist to enforce standards.&nbsp;



Schor told Blockworks that the Safe Core Protocol aims to address issues around interoperability and security.&nbsp;



“In the long run, we want you to be able to plug your different smart accounts into the same protocol, it’s all interoperable, and it all leverages the same security properties,” said Schor.



Over the next few months, the team will seek community feedback on the proposed protocol.



“We wanted to get the white paper out early even though we&#8217;re still working on the actual implementation to get early community feedback,” Schor said. “It gets harder to change things as we go along, so we want to get feedback as early as possible when things are still very flexible.”







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Safe is designing a new standard for modular smart accounts

Dapp (dencentralized app) development team Smol recently released MultiSafe, which enables users to keep the same address across multiple blockchains.



The newly launched dapp builds on the work of Safe, previously known as Gnosis Safe, which develops modular infrastructure for user access and management of their crypto holdings.&nbsp;



One of its most well-known products, Safe Wallet, is a smart contract wallet designed to simplify the user experience of having multiple owners or signers — known as a multisig.&nbsp;



The problem, according to Smol core contributor <a href="https://twitter.com/draper_forms">draper</a>, was that when people use different addresses for their Safe across different chains and layer-2s, things can get confusing.



“We built MultiSafe to be the simplest way for anyone to deploy a Safe on the most used chains and have the same address on all of them. Users can deploy a totally new safe or clone an existing one in just a couple of clicks,” draper said.



MultiSafe was officially announced on Aug. 11. At the time, the team wrote that its release “continues Smol&#8217;s mission of creating simple to use and functional dapps designed to solve crypto pain points.”



So how does MultiSafe work?



MultiSafe is designed so that users can deploy a new Safe across multiple different chains within seconds whilst keeping the same address.&nbsp;



“If you already have a safe, you can ‘clone’ that safe onto other chains and keep the original address,” draper explained. “Under the hood, MultiSafe is using Safe’s own factory system which allows anyone to deploy Safe related contracts to any chain.”



This is accomplished by taking advantage of Safe’s deterministic logic, they said. This means users will be given the same address as their existing Safe accounts on different chains.&nbsp;



The Smol team has already built and shipped seven different <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/dapps">dapps</a> — and according to draper, is in talks with other teams about future projects. 



“We’re already getting a nice amount of interest from other projects and protocols for us to integrate with them,” draper said.



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Smol built an app to keep your cross-chain crypto under one address

Ben Strack

The CEO of startup Utopia Labs believes that the widespread adoption of seamless crypto payments may still be a decade away. However, that hasn&#8217;t stopped the company from taking strides to expedite this future through its latest initiatives.



Last month, Utopia Labs launched a product giving businesses the ability to send <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/usdc">USDC</a> to any US bank account. Entities are also able to send the stablecoin to USD accounts, such as ones offered by payments company Wise.



Utopia’s offering is built on top of <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/safe" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Safe</a>, a decentralized custody protocol and asset management platform on Ethereum. Utopia works with Bridge — which lets developers convert between dollar formats, including stablecoins — to help it move money.  



“We’ve kind of skipped the intermediary process where retail users…go directly from self-custody right to [their] bank,” CEO Kaito Cunningham told Blockworks in an interview.



The world won&#8217;t migrate straight to crypto, said Andy Bromberg, CEO of the Eco App and a contributor to the Eco protocol.



“Building bridges like this are key to doing so — allowing companies to operate between the two paradigms and interface with counterparties in both,&#8221; Bromberg said.&nbsp;



When a user makes a payment of USDC through Utopia, an on-chain liquidation address is created to be associated with each bank account. There is a 0.3% fee for each transaction.&nbsp;



“Today, you&#8217;d have to sign up for an exchange, trade the on-chain funds for fiat and withdraw to your own bank account, and then send onwards to the counterparty,” Bromberg noted. “But Utopia is now allowing all of that in a single flow.&#8221;&nbsp;



Use cases for the product include venture capital funds sending USDC to portfolio companies, or DeFi projects off-ramping on-chain revenue. Cunningham said companies can even pay their Amazon Web Services (AWS) bill using crypto.&nbsp;



<a href="https://collective.xyz/">Collective</a> and PleasrDAO are users, Utopia Labs noted in a <a href="https://twitter.com/utopialabs_/status/1682104697619095553">tweet</a>.&nbsp;



“We are actually talking to companies where they are questioning if they even need to have a bank account anymore,” Cunningham said. “Because they make all their money in crypto and the only use cases in which they need to interact with the real world are service providers and payroll use cases.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Looking ahead</h2>



While Utopia currently uses the Ethereum blockchain, it is set to make the offering available on most other blockchains soon, Cunningham said.



Utopia also seeks to add support for other stablecoins going forward, including tether (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/usdt">USDT</a>) in the coming weeks.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/usdc-market-cap-falls">Why USDC’s market cap is half of what it was a year ago</a>



“I believe in a multi-stablecoin future,” Cunningham told Blockworks. “We went with USDC first because that was what Bridge had provided in terms of [infrastructure].”



The Utopia Labs CEO said it might take 10 years before crypto payments see major traction. He called that future “not a reality at all” today — citing regulatory uncertainty among the hurdles.



“Crypto has to communicate with fiat for us to accelerate that future, and we think…it doesn’t have to be a separate product,” Cunningham said. “It should be ingrained and embedded within the users’ workflows.”



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Businesses can send USDC to any US bank account — with more stablecoins to come

James Cirrone

Gnosis Pay, a payments solution tied to Gnosis Chain, is set to come out in a little over a week.



It’s the latest in a series of developments for Gnosis, which was founded in 2017 and shifted into a DAO in 2020. GnosisDAO later created the Gnosis Chain and incubated Gnosis Safe, and both products appear to have continued to drive demand.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Gnosis Safe, now known as Safe, <a href="https://forum.gnosis.io/t/gip-29-spin-off-safedao-and-launch-safe-token/3476">spun</a> off from the GnosisDAO in 2022, and now stores more than $39 billion of assets, according to its <a href="https://safe.global/">website</a>. Another <a href="https://dune.com/safe/all">estimate</a> shows that the US value of all the ERC-20 tokens in Safe accounts is approximately $58 billion.



With Gnosis readying its payment product — which appears to feature either a credit or debit card — and Safe <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gnosis-spinoff-safe-gets-100m-to-further-ecosystem">receiving $100 million as part of their rebrand</a> last July, it’s about time to take a closer look at these intertwined entities.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Safe partners with Monerium for European transactions</h2>



Safe said Thursday it will include on- and off-chain euro payment capabilities through a partnership formed with stablecoin issuer Monerium.&nbsp;



Monerium’s fiat solution is set to be integrated on Safe’s platform, making Safe accounts “seamlessly connected to the SEPA payment system, eliminating the need for additional off-chain bank accounts, ramps, or centralized exchanges,” a statement said.



Safe accounts will be able to receive euros from external bank accounts because the Monerium integration will convert the fiat into its euro stablecoin, EURe. And if a Safe account holder wants to send its EURe, a similar process will happen in reverse, the statement said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">MakerDAO wants to deploy Spark Lend on Gnosis Chain</h2>



According to a proposal on the MakerDAO forum by Karpatkey, a DAO that provides treasury management for other DAOs, Spark Lend could be expanding to Gnosis Chain.



Spark Lend, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/makers-spark-protocol-dai">created through the launch of the Spark Protocol</a> in May 2023, is a lending engine powered by Maker, and users can <a href="https://www.sparkprotocol.io/">borrow</a> DAI from Maker at a 3.43% interest rate.



Gnosis and Maker have had a longtime partnership: GnosisDAO contributed around $140 million to Maker’s vaults, and GNO, Gnosis’s native token, was already listed as collateral on Spark Lend, according to Karpatkey.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">.<a href="https://twitter.com/karpatkey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@karpatkey</a> has put forth a proposal to launch Spark Protocol on <a href="https://twitter.com/gnosischain?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@gnosischain</a>! The formidable Maker-Gnosis strategic partnership could reach new milestones, with <a href="https://twitter.com/GnosisDAO?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GnosisDAO</a> embracing Endgame and the launch of the first DAI-centric lending protocol on Gnosis Chain. ↓ <a href="https://t.co/7PP5GlmZbv">pic.twitter.com/7PP5GlmZbv</a>&mdash; Maker (@MakerDAO) <a href="https://twitter.com/MakerDAO/status/1676619439587065858?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Gnosis chain security upgrade</h2>



Gnosis <a href="https://twitter.com/gnosischain/status/1675957560397152273">selected</a> Succinct Labs’ Ethereum ZK Light Client as the solution to secure its mainnet omnibridge.



The Gnosis Omnibridge <a href="https://docs.gnosischain.com/bridges/tutorials/using-omnibridge/">bridges</a> ERC-20 tokens between Gnosis Chain and a number of other chains, including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and the POA Network.



Gnosis told its users that this will increase security for anyone who bridges “assets or data from Ethereum into Gnosis Chain.”



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">What does this mean for users? Users who bridge assets or data from Ethereum into Gnosis Chain will now have additional security from <a href="https://twitter.com/SuccinctLabs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SuccinctLabs</a>’s OmniBridge ZK Validator Smart Contract. ✅ Feel more confident about bridging assets to the Gnosis ecosystem.&mdash; Gnosis Chain 🦉 (@gnosischain) <a href="https://twitter.com/gnosischain/status/1675957569775603713?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 3, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The ZK Light Client has been around eight months in the making, with Succinct’s first demo application dropping in November 2022, according to a <a href="https://twitter.com/SuccinctLabs/status/1587903196671844352">tweet</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Gnosis Pay coming soon</h2>



Though public details surrounding Gnosis Pay have been scant, the product’s launch site offers some solid indications.



There’s an image of the front and back of an upcoming credit or debit card emblazoned with Gnosis’ insignia.



And a hint was dropped about Gnosis Pay in Karpatkey’s Spark Lend proposal.



“This month Gnosis Pay will be launching, allowing the issuance of credit cards. This opens up [sic] many collaboration opportunities with Spark i.e. allowing users to spend from their collateral in Spark,” Karpatkey wrote.



Gnosis Pay was set to launch in mid July, more or less coinciding with the EthCC conference in Paris.



Updated July 10, 2023 at 6:30 pm ET: Clarified Karpatkey&#8217;s role in MakerDAO.



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Since Gnosis spinout, Safe locking down ERC-20 tokens

<div id="highlights-block_6334bede2148f" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The token will provide retroactive rewards that will be partially vested over a four-year period</li>
 <li>Core contributors are given &#8220;backloaded vesting&#8221; for their token allocations</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Leading Ethereum-based digital asset management platform Safe — formerly Gnosis Safe — has launched its governance token, SAFE, following its latest rebrand.



The SAFE token will be used to ensure the decentralized governance of SafeDAO.



The token can now be claimed via an airdrop facilitated by Safe’s core team, appointed Safe guardians, investors who participated in the protocol’s $100 million fundraise and 55,000 Safe users. Eligible users will have until Dec. 27, 2022, at 12:00 pm CET to claim their tokens.



The launch of SafeDAO’s SAFE token was unlike traditional airdrops.



The token provides retroactive rewards that would partially vest over a four-year period, and core contributors will be given &#8220;backloaded vesting&#8221; for their token allocations.



Nick Ducoff, a venture partner at G20 Ventures, complemented the approach SafeDAO took, and <a href="https://twitter.com/nickducoff/status/1575106896075243520" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a> that this should become the new standard for DAO token launches.



Ducoff told Blockworks that the four-year vest with a one-year cliff and ensuing monthly vesting is already a market standard in traditional tech companies that should be used by DAOs.



“Part-time contributors and bounties probably should have little to no vesting, because it is often the only payment those contributors are receiving for their services, and many need to be able to sell them — even if they believe in the organization — to pay bills and eat,” Ducoff said.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Added Ducoff: “We want a more diverse contributor base, so we shouldn’t limit contributors to those that can long hold a token and don’t need the money, but we also want contributors who are building for the long-term value of the DAO.”</blockquote>



Drawing on the likes of ENS and LooksRare, Ducoff said without vesting options of airdropped tokens, it is possible that token recipients would sell immediately, causing prices to drop. 



“You could argue that’s ok, because they went from short-term holders to long-term holders, but while ENS found a group of long-term holders and delegates, LooksRare eventually petered out,” he said.



The SAFE airdrop is also only eligible to contributors or delegates within the ecosystem, and DAO participants will be asked to review and sign legal documents.



Ducoff believes DAO governance should involve a legal process because “while employee/core contributor contributions are likely inherently owned by the DAO, contributions by contractors are not without clear assignment of IP [intellectual property],” he said.&nbsp;



And the initial airdrop of SAFE tokens will be non-transferable, and it will be up to the community to determine whether that changes.



A move that Ducoff believes can help the token pass the Howey Test — an SEC method to determine whether a financial instrument, including a digital asset, is a regulated security.



“I’d be cautious about discussing when the future vote about transferability might occur — and keep it rather opaque such that people are taking these tokens with no expectation of profit,” he said.



Although Ducoff thinks that SafeDAO’s approach to launching its governance token is a good starting point, he acknowledges that the market is still in its early stages.&nbsp;



“These are all experiments,” he said. “They will learn from it and adjust &#8211; and because of the composability and transparency of the blockchain, others can learn too, accelerating the innovation in the space.”



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Has SafeDAO Set the New Standard for Launching Governance Tokens?

Ornella Hernandez

<div id="highlights-block_62fcdb453f067" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>NFTfi is to become the first NFT lending platform to offer its users NFT rights management enabled loans</li>
 <li>Gnosis Safe recently rebranded to Safe following $100M raise</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The NFT lending protocol NFTfi and digital asset manager Safe, formerly Gnosis Safe, partnered to develop a new product for non-fungible token owners intended to provide added value to digital assets.



Usually, an NFT owner’s rights — to display an NFT, access token-gated content, sign transactions with it or receive an airdrop, for example — are tied to the blockchain address associated with the wallet holding the NFT.&nbsp;



When that digital asset is transferred out of that wallet, such as in the case of an NFT-collateralized loan or NFT rental, the holder may essentially be giving up physical ownership.&nbsp;



The challenge is to improve NFT rights efficiency. The solution proposed by NFTfi and Safe is an NFT Rights Management Wallet to allow Safe Ethereum wallet users to segregate and delegate certain rights and permissions associated with an NFT to other Ethereum addresses.&nbsp;



As part of the partnership, Safe announced an investment of an undisclosed amount in NFTfi, which will become part of the Safe product suite. Gnosis Safe recently rebranded to Safe following a <a href="https://snapshot.org/#/gnosis.eth/proposal/0x5187694133abfb3d140acce3b9ac2ecf033c657c816a18dc25d2e0c1a2a29ec7" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">community vote</a> to spin-off and a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/gnosis-spinoff-safe-gets-100m-to-further-ecosystem/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$100 million injection of capital led by 1kx</a> crypto fund.  



Web3 development studio BootNode led the technical implementation of the open-source NFT Rights Management Wallet product.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What are the benefits of a NFTfi NFT wallet?</h3>



Stephen Young, CEO of NFTfi, told Blockworks that the Rights Management Wallet is not use case specific, and that the long-term vision is to “usher in a new era of utility” and “unlock tremendous value for the entire NFT space.”



The immediate benefit for NFTfi, according to Young, is that it makes loans more convenient and cheap. If an NFT is used as collateral in a secured NFT loan, it is moved to an escrow third party wallet for the duration of the loan.&nbsp;



Programmable NFT assets plus rights management technology, on the other hand, would permit the NFT owner to delegate transfer rights to NFTfi, instead of transferring the asset for the loan period, while still retaining full NFT ownership.&nbsp;



As NFT financial products such as loans, liquidity tools and derivatives become more robust, NFTfi aspires to become the leading settlement layer for NFT financial transactions, added Young.&nbsp;



“It pursues a platform strategy in which external developers and teams can build agreement types, such as rentals or options, and use NFTfi&#8217;s existing distribution and liquidity to build profitable services on top” Young said.



Lukas Schor, the co-Founder of Safe, confirmed that the investment in NFTfi was not financed through the recent funding round because it occurred before the official spin-off from Gnosis and before the funding round was concluded.



When asked why Safe is focusing on NFT rights management, Schor said that Safe has already “gained significant traction with big treasuries” and that NFTs are an “important driver for retail users to adopt more secure self-custody setups.”&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“With NFTs we think the awareness of retail to seek out more robust options is much higher. Besides the monetary value, NFTs also have emotional, sentimental and cultural value which make them irreplaceable in case they’d get lost,” Schor added. </blockquote>



In a statement shared with Blockworks, Manu Garcia, the CEO and co-founder of BootNode said that the project will enable rights efficiency, “which is to NFTs what capital efficiency is to DeFi.”



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