Patience Igwe · Follow
Published in · 9 min read · Jul 13, 2022
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Amongst the many problems of several organizations and institutions includes tackling the problem of proper management and security of funds.
So many blockchain organizations, store their funds in an external wallet, with a single person having the utmost authority to facilitate transactions of the entire organization, and with the increased rate of information security threats, the likes of Software attacks, identity theft, theft of intellectual property, sabotage, and information extortion, there is a need for high security of funds, especially in the blockchain space. This has been a major cause for alarm.
Over the years, blockchain institutions and DAOs have been in disarray for the single problem of finding a secured place to store their funds and governance token. Some projects have been outsourced to hacks while some others are no longer in existence because of this single defect, and then came the gnosis safe. The saviour for all digital assets.
Gnosis Safe is a smart contract wallet running on Ethereum that requires a minimum number of people to approve a transaction before it can occur. The gnosis team has come up with a solution that will, of course, address all the security and verification dilemmas of all organizational funds, thereby, putting the pain to order.
Gnosis was founded by Martin Köppelmann and Stephan George in the year 2015, during the then-recent launch of the Ethereum network, even though they did not partake in the Ether token launch. These two have been in the blockchain since 2013 during the time when bitcoin was the only digital asset and was trading for only about $30. They learned about the bitcoin whitepaper and with time, started writing software and prediction market exchange for bitcoin. Then towards the end of 2014, they met Joseph Lubin, the founder of Consensys, who also encouraged them to join consensys and build their new project on it, and that was how Gnosis Safe started.
According to Cointelegraph, In 2017, Gnosis was able to spin off its Initial Coin Offering and was able to make over $300 MLN in minutes.
However, we cannot possibly begin to talk about Gnosis Safe without making reference to the different types of Ethereum accounts.
TYPES OF ETHEREUM ACCOUNTs
There are basically two different types of Ethereum accounts which includes :
- Externally-owned account (EOA)
- Contract Account
Externally owned accounts (EOA), are generally referred to as simple accounts. These accounts are controlled by private and public keys, and if you own the private key associated with the externally owned account (EOA), then you have the ability to send ETH to another wallet. MetaMask is the most popular Ethereum software wallet.
Contract Accounts are often referred to as smart contracts. They consist of a series of codes that run as a program on the Ethereum blockchain. However, unlike the Externally owned Accounts (EOA), they do not have private keys. Click here to learn more about Smart Contracts .
The New Way
Multisig Wallets
According to Bitstamp, a multiSig wallet is a digital wallet that operates with multi-signature addresses. This means that it requires more than one private key to sign and authorize a crypto transaction. Multisignature wallets create an additional layer of security to funds.
Gnosis Safe is a MultiSig Smart contract wallet that allows users to store ether and ERC20 tokens securely while interacting with the decentralized web.
Imagine you want to start a business that will require two or more people as the co-founders, partners or let’s say, you and two other of your friends want to build a Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), or a Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, where you will be the CEO, and your first friend the smart contract engineer while the second friend becomes the UI/UX designer. There is every possibility for adoption and usability which will in turn increase the revenue gotten per NFT transaction.
Your profits which may be stored in a smart contract are unavoidably insecure as one of your friends may possibly go, rogue, one day and decide to withdraw all the funds in the smart contract because he has easy access to the funds. What a dilemma!. Luckily, you have an alternative reserve that can sustain the project and prevent it from folding, or the reverse may be the case.
Then you decide that such will never repeat itself and so, you employ a verification process that will allow all transactions on the smart contract to be authorized and approved by key people in the organization. For instance, if the key people in your organization are 10 people, you can decide that for every withdrawal transaction, a minimum of 6 key people would validate and approve the transaction before it can proceed.
Fortunately, Gnosis Safe has all these problems solved as it allows you to securely interact with your NFT marketplace or your governance tokens without manually employing or even learning these verification methods from scratch.
As an organization or group of individuals that want to secure their funds, all you need is to create a Gnosis Safe wallet, enable a certain number of signatories and deposit your funds. Now, if there are three (3) key people in the business, at least two approvals are needed for withdrawals of funds. This means that no one person has utmost control over the organization’s funds.
This is exactly the rate of security Gnosis Safe guarantees its users.
Features of Gnosis Safe
Among the many features of the gnosis safe include:
- Multi-signature: Gnosis safe enables a fully customizable feature on how you manage your company’s digital assets, by allowing for a number of key signatories to the company’s account. These signatories are confined to facilitating, authorising and approving transactions in order to execute it, which helps prevent unauthorized access to company assets.
- Gnosis Safe supports ETH, ERC20 (Tokens) and ERC721 (Collectibles). And allows you to see the fiat values of your assets.
- Gnosis Safe also allows you to use your favourite wallet to sign transactions. No matter if it’s a mobile wallet, browser extension, or hardware wallet.
- The Gnosis Safe Apps is bringing multisig security to Defi. It allows you to utilize your digital assets to invest, earn, borrow, invoice, do payroll and more, directly from the Gnosis Safe Interface. Users are able to customize their own interface by selecting from a list of apps and also add extra apps by simply putting the links
- Gnosis Safe is available as a mobile app (for both Android and iOS), desktop app (for both Windows, macOS, and Linux), and an in-browser extension.
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How to set up the Gnosis Safe Smart Wallet?
To set up a Gnosis Safe wallet, you start by
- Download the Gnosis Safe Smart wallet from your desktop or the app store and install the app. Or Visit the Gnosis Safe website and on the top right corner, click on the open app.
- Then click on the “Create a new wallet”, icon, and connect the wallet by selecting the kind of wallet you prefer, either Metamask, pocket wallet, etc.
- Select the network you want, as there are lots of networks like Ethereum, Gnosis chain, Polygon, BNB Smartchain, etc. But I always prefer it to be in the Ethereum network, so, we will leave it at that and click continue.
- Give a name to your wallet, either the name of the organization, group or even personal name
- Add your name, and add another user who will be a key signatory to the account. Then select the number of signatories you want and continue.
- Confirm that you are ready to create a wallet on the pop-up window, as you will be charged a certain amount depending on your wallet and tap on create.
- And there you have your Gnosis Safe Smart wallet, which is now active and ready to use
Why You Need Gnosis Safe
Here are some of the reasons why you need Gnosis safe
- Security: This is one of the top concerns of every investor, organization or individual who has plans to dive into the digital space and Gnosis Safe is offering optimal security to all your digital assets. With gnosis, no one individual possesses optimal control over the organization’s funds and in a case of controversy, where one individual is compromised, there is still little or no threat to the organization’s funds
- All in one asset bank: Gnosis offers an opportunity to have all your assets, both crypto and NFTs, all in one place, thereby reducing the stress of switching from one wallet to another.
- Smart contract: Gnosis runs as a smart contract which means that there is no need for private and public keys and every fund allocated to the organizations is sent to a particular contract that runs on the gnosis network.
- Social Recovery: Unlike the regular problems of losing your wallet’s seed phrase, which results in losing all your funds, gnosis safe offers an opportunity for social recovery which will allow an individual to recover his wallet by a confirmation from the other key signatories. What this means is that you can easily recover your wallet in a case where you lose ownership or right to your gadgets.
The use of Gnosis Safe cannot be overemphasized. The core responsibility of every digital organization is to ensure the absolute security of its organizations and users’ funds while making profits. Projects like Consensys, ENS, Yearn finance, 1inch and lots others, have proven that Gnosis safe is the most trusted platform to manage digital assets.
So, what are you waiting for to secure your funds today? Hit the link to get started on the Gnosis Safe App Now!
Igwe Ihuoma Patience is a self-taught creative and industry-specific content writer, and cryptocurrency enthusiast with 2years plus experience and knowledge of the constantly evolving blockchain space.
I am skilled in content creation, copywriting, curating captions, video editing & graphic designing with mobile phones and I teach others how to get started in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space and My goal is to make blockchain learning and updates easy for anyone to understand.
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