Gnosis Safe Smart Wallet Review: Is Gnosis The Most Secure Smart Contract Wallet? (2024)

Gnosis safe is a cryptocurrency wallet specially designed for the Ethereum network to host eth-based cryptos and tokens. The wallet was developed by GNOSIS – an internet technology company in Gibraltar – and is among the first smart contract-based mobile apps. It is available as both a desktop/mobile app as well as a browser extension. This, according to its developers, doesn’t just ensure that the wallet is safer but also gives it the capability to handle a wider range of functions not offered by the traditional blockchain wallets.

The Gnosis safe website refers to the wallet app as “The most trusted platform to manage digital assets on Ethereum for companies/investors/developers/hodlers and DAOs.” It also refers to it as a “Safe Multisig mobile” wallet that helps users monitor their crypto portfolio on the go. It is further described as a transparency and security-focused eth-wallet that seeks to provide wallet users with a balance between safety and ease of use. In this Gnosis Safe smart wallet review, we look at everything you need to know about the eth-based crypto vault while helping you determine if it indeed is the most secure smart contract wallet.

Gnosis safe key features:

Cross-platform: Gnosis Safe is a cross-platform wallet. It is available as a mobile app (for both Android and iOS), desktop app (for both Windows, macOS, and Linux), and an in-browser extension.

Multi-user: Gnosis Safe smart wallet is also a multi-user wallet that provides multiple safes within the wallet. They have separate login credentials and work best for family members, acquaintances, or companies that want to maintain all their crypto assets in one vault.

DeFi focused: Gnosis also integrates some of the most popular decentralized finance apps and protocols maintained on the Ethereum Network.

Address book: Gnosis wallet also features an address book that allows you to either integrate the wallet with your phone’s contact list or save the contact information such as the wallet addresses of individuals you engage regularly.

Integrate Dapps: The fact that Gnosis Safe Smart wallet is built on the Ethereum ecosystem makes it possible to explore the blockchain and interact with different Dapps maintained here.

Gnosis safe security features:

Password: Like most other wallets, Gnosis Safe Smart wallet is password-secured, and you get to set this unique key when creating a user account.

Two-factor authentication: You can always use the Gnosis Safe Authenticator or the Status Keycard to activate the wallet’s 2-factor authentication feature for all outbound transfers.

Recovery seed: During the wallet activation and account creation process, you will be presented with a backup/recovery seed for the wallet. Write it down and keep it safe offline.

Open source: Gnosis Safe Smart wallet is fully open-sourced and users, as well as crypto security experts, are free to view and audit source code for vulnerabilities. Gnosis Labs has also continuously run a bug bounty program for the wallet, and no critical bug or vulnerability has ever been discovered.

Multi-signature: Gnosis Safe Smart wallet is a multi-signature crypto vault. You can activate this feature for the entire wallet if you only run one safe or any number of safes hosted by the wallet.

How to activate/setup the Gnosis Safe Smart Wallet?

Step 1: Start by downloading the Gnosis Safe Smart wallet from either the website or the app store

Step 2: Install and launch the app. Click on the “Create a new wallet” icon

Step 3: Read through and agree to the Gnosis privacy policy and terms of use

Step 4: Create a unique password for the Gnosis Safe wallet

Step 5: Proceed to create the first safe for the wallet. This requires you to deposit Eth or any of the supported tokens, and you will be charged a small fee (about 0.005 ETH) as the cost of deploying the wallet

Step 6: Confirm that you are ready to create a wallet on the pop-up window

Step 7: You will be required to download the web extension that serves as your wallet’s two-factor authenticator. It is also referred to as a Safe Authenticator.

Step 8: Install the browser extension app and upon launching, create a user password. This has to be different from the mobile app password.

Step 9: In the next window, click on the ‘Show QR Code’ icon and scan the QR code with your phone to connect the Safe Authenticator with Gnosis Safe Smart wallet

Step 10: Write down the recovery phrase provided and store it in a safe offline environment. Verify that you have copied it correctly.

Step 11: Pay the wallet deployment fees

Step 12: You will receive a notification via the in-browser app, informing you that the safe wallet has been successfully created and deployed.

Step 13: Your Gnosis Safe Smart wallet is now active and ready to use

How to add/ receive Crypto into Gnosis safe smart wallet:

Step 1: Log in to your Gnosis safe mobile app wallet and click on the ‘Receive” icon

Step 2: If you have multiple safes created, select the safe into which you want to receive the crypto

Step 3: Copy the wallet address or the QR code for the safe and forward it to parties ending you crypto

Step 4: Wait for the funds to reflect in your wallet

How to send crypto from Gnosis safe wallet:

Step 1: Log in to your Gnosis safe Mobile wallet app and click on the “Send” icon

Step 2: Select the safe from which you want to send crypto

Step 3: Select the digital asset you want to send

Step 4: Enter the recipient’s address and the number of coins you wish to send in the transfer window

Step 5: Check that the details of the transaction are correct and click the send button

Step 6: Log in to the Safe Authenticator (in-app browser) to review and authorize the transaction. Click the ‘Submit’ button if satisfied with the accuracy of the transaction details

Step 7: Return to the Gnosis safe smart mobile wallet to initiate the transfer.

Gnosis Safe smart wallet ease of use:

Though one may consider the setup and activation process for the Gnosis Safe Smart wallet app to be too lengthy, it is still quite straightforward. The setup guide is easy to follow, and you do not even need expert help to set up the mobile wallet or link it with the Safe authenticator. The Gnosis Safe wallet website features a wide range of guides that explain how to activate and interact with the Ethereum wallet.

Gnosis Safe smart wallet supported currencies:

Gnosis Safe is an Eth-focused wallet. It will, therefore, only feature Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, ERC-20 tokens, and such collectibles as the ERC-721 tokens.

Gnosis Safe smart wallet cost and fees:

Gnosis Safe wallet is free to download and install. However, you will be required to pay a small wallet deployment fee of ETH 0.005 when creating a wallet. Other fees include the transaction fees charged by the Ethereum network when you send cryptos/tokens to other wallets or exchanges.

What are the pros and cons of using Gnosis Safe smart wallet?

Pros:

  • It embraces highly advanced security features
  • It makes it possible for you to invest and earn digital assets
  • Gnosis wallet has a highly responsive customer support team
  • The wallet provides you with a demo version that you can use to test the vault

Cons:

  • It will only support Eth based cryptos and tokens
  • The wallet is exposed to inherent threats facing hot wallets
  • It imposes a ‘wallet deployment’ fee

Verdict: Is Gnosis Safe Wallet secure?

Well, Gnosis Safe Smart wallet embraces several highly effective security measures that its developers believe will play a key role in boosting the wallet’s safety and privacy. The wallet is password secured, outbound transfers from the Gnosis Safe smart wallet must be subjected to two-factor authentication, it is a multi-signature vault, and has also been formally verified by the Ethereum network. Our only concern with the Gnosis Safe Smart wallet is that both the Gnosis safe mobile app and Gnosis Safe Authenticator are online-based and, therefore, exposed to the inherent threats facing hot wallets.

Gnosis Safe Smart Wallet Review: Is Gnosis The Most Secure Smart Contract Wallet? (2024)

FAQs

Is Gnosis wallet safe? ›

Gnosis Safe is one of the highest-quality implementations of a smart contract wallet. Unlike a standard private key wallet, it uses a smart contract to control funds.

Is Gnosis Safe trustworthy? ›

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.

How much does it cost to use Gnosis Safe? ›

A Safe with two signers requires approximately 0.00263 ETH ($3.55). A Safe with three signers requires about 0.00309 ETH ($4.17). A Safe with four signers requires about 0.00331 ETH ($4.46).

Are smart contract wallets safe? ›

Advanced security features

The programmable nature of smart contract wallets lets developers design complex safety features to protect user funds. In comparison, the safety of an EOA-controlled wallet relies solely on the security of the private key—if the key is lost or stolen, users have no way of accessing funds.

What is the safest most secure crypto wallet? ›

The best crypto wallet for maximum security is a cold (offline) hardware wallet, like Trezor or Ledger. The security benefits of the two crypto wallets are comparable, though Trezor's easy-to-use touchscreen and insurance against forgotten passphrases are big benefits.

Who has the safest crypto wallet? ›

10 BEST Crypto Wallet Apps (Feb 2023)
  • Top Pick. ZenGo. ...
  • #1 Top Pick. ZenGo. ...
  • #2 Top Pick. Binance. ...
  • #3 Top Pick. PrimeXBT. ...
  • #4 Top Pick. Ledger Nano X. ...
  • #5 Top Pick. Trezor Model T. ...
  • #6 Top Pick. Pionex. ...
  • #7 Top Pick. Coinbase.
Feb 17, 2023

Has Gnosis Safe ever been hacked? ›

Gnosis Safe has been around for over 5 years and there has only ever been 1 successful phishing attack, back in December 2021.

Is Gnosis on Ethereum? ›

Gnosis is an open-source, decentralized prediction market built on the Ethereum blockchain.

How is Gnosis Safe with MetaMask? ›

Gnosis Safe
  1. 1) Go to the Safe application on Harmony at https://multisig.harmony.one and click on Connect Wallet.
  2. 2) Chose your wallet.
  3. Select the MetaMask option in the connect wallet menu. ...
  4. 1) Press Create new Safe. ...
  5. 2) Name the safe. ...
  6. 4) Submit your safe by clicking on Submit. ...
  7. 5) Confirm the transaction on Metamask.

What is the benefit of Gnosis Safe? ›

Gnosis Safe uses smart contracts to support its multi-signature wallet. A multi-signature or multisig wallet requires more than one person's signature to execute transactions. Gnosis Safe allows users to securely store Ethereum and ERC20 tokens and interact with decentralized applications.

Is Gnosis a Blockchain? ›

Gnosis Chain, a privacy-focused blockchain, has activated its own version of The Merge, and transactions on the network are now being processed under a proof-of-stake consensus in a process similar to what happened on Ethereum on Sept. 15.

Is Gnosis Safe free? ›

Gnosis Safe wallet is free to download and install. However, you will be required to pay a small wallet deployment fee of ETH 0.005 when creating a wallet.

Can a smart contract drain a wallet? ›

When interacting with smart contracts, do not allow unlimited spend limits. An unlimited spend could enable the smart contract to drain your wallet. Instead, set spending limits to only the amount necessary for the transaction. Many Ethereum wallets offer limits protection to safeguard against accounts being drained.

What are the risks of smart contract? ›

There's a promise of security, speed and transparency. However, the smart contract being visible to all is a double-edged sword. While both parties to the transaction can view the contract at any time, so can hackers. And in doing so, they can discover vulnerabilities that can be used to exploit the blockchain.

Do smart contract wallets have private keys? ›

Smart wallets rely on smart contracts to make the user experience safer and easier. Unlike common Web3 wallets, smart wallets use no private keys or seed phrases to access your account. Instead, you set who and under what conditions may access the wallet via smart contracts.

What is the best and most secure digital wallet? ›

10 Best Digital Wallets
  1. Apple Pay. Apple Pay is a digital payment solution for contactless payments, created and operated only on Apple devices. ...
  2. Cash App. Cash App is a peer-to-peer money transfer service developed by Square Inc. ...
  3. Dwolla. ...
  4. Google Pay. ...
  5. PayPal. ...
  6. Samsung Wallet. ...
  7. Venmo. ...
  8. Zelle.
Dec 5, 2022

Which wallet is best for all cryptocurrency? ›

Our Top Picks for the Best Crypto Wallets of February 2023
  • Coinbase Wallet - Best for Beginners.
  • MetaMask - Best for Ethereum.
  • TrustWallet - Best for Mobile.
  • Ledger Nano S Plus - Best Crypto Hardware Wallet.
  • Electrum - Best Desktop Bitcoin Wallet.
  • BlueWallet - Best Mobile Bitcoin Wallet.
  • Exodus - Best for Desktop.
Feb 1, 2023

What is the safest free crypto wallet? ›

Guarda: 4.6 out of 5 stars

Guarda is a free, all-purpose crypto wallet whose users can access their crypto via mobile, desktop or browser extension. It says it supports more than 400,000 digital assets. Users of Guarda can move crypto into cold storage through an integration with the hardware wallet Ledger.

Are crypto wallets more secure than banks? ›

Cryptocurrencies are completely free of the control of third parties, unlike banks. This decentralized nature minimizes human interactions, which makes them free from biases. They are more secure and reliable since it is hard to tamper with them because they use anonymous ID numbers in transactions.

Is it worth having a crypto wallet? ›

Crypto wallets are an essential tool for buying, trading and selling cryptocurrencies. Traders need them to store crypto securely, as well as to protect and validate transaction information.

Which VPNs have been hacked? ›

In early 2021, more than 21 million Android users were exposed. Three different free Android VPNs were targeted: SuperVPN, Gecko VPN, and Chat VPN. The cyberattackers harvested deeply sensitive user information and advertised the data cache to the highest bidder on a popular hacker forum.

What is the chance of getting hacked? ›

CharacteristicLikelyUnlikely
United States37%42%
Sweden36%48%
Australia33%47%
Canada33%43%
9 more rows
Oct 27, 2022

What are alternatives to Gnosis Safe? ›

The best alternatives to Gnosis Safe are Chainstarters , Balance and Audius.

Who uses Gnosis? ›

Gnosis Safe is one of the most popular digital asset management platforms for DAOs, with over $90B worth of assets stored in self custody. Many DAOs, including Uniswap, Maker DAO, Aave, and Bit DAO use Gnosis Safe for their custody needs.

How does Gnosis make money? ›

The protocol has a built-in fee of 0.1% for each trade. The fee is split evenly between the solvers and GNO tokenholders, which means that GNO tokenholders benefit from increased volume. How is the protocol governed? The protocol is decentralized and permissionless.

Who created Gnosis? ›

Who created Gnosis? Gnosis was founded by Martin Köppelmann and Stefan George, with Köppelmann heading up the project as the CEO and George serving as the CTO. Gnosis, which was initially launched as a prediction market platform, is among the first projects supported by the Ethereum-focused incubator ConsenSys.

Why is MetaMask risky? ›

Being an online wallet, your browser will collect information about how and when you use MetaMask. This can be a potential privacy concern for cryptocurrency users. MetaMask also holds private keys in your browser. While this makes the app easier to use, it presents serious risks if your browser is hacked.

Do you own your crypto on MetaMask? ›

When you buy crypto in MetaMask, you're not buying crypto with or from MetaMask: you're buying with the provider you choose. If you want to manage any personal information that the providers hold, you must access the provider's platform directly, log into your account, and make the changes there.

What is safer than MetaMask? ›

Another highly important aspect is the Security Level - it can tell you how safe your crypto assets will be if stored in a certain wallet. After doing Coinbase vs MetaMask comparison, it's evident that Coinbase has somewhat better security features than MetaMask.

Who are the investors in Gnosis Safe? ›

The funding round was led by 1kx and investors include Tiger Global, Kraken Ventures, Digital Currency Group and Coinbase Ventures.

What is the price prediction for GNO crypto? ›

There is a slight bearish sentiment in the crypto market. The long term sentiment, however, remains bullish and GNO could hit $178.28 in 2024. The total circulating supply of Gnosis as of writing this article was $2,589,589 and the marketcap of GNO remains at $285,475,775.

How do I connect my wallet to Gnosis Safe? ›

You can connect to WalletConnect to interact with supported DApps using Gnosis Safe.
  1. Go to APPS in the navigation menu.
  2. Select the WalletConnect App. ...
  3. Visit the application and connect to your wallet. ...
  4. Return to Gnosis Safe and paste the image into the Paste QR code field.
Dec 1, 2022

Is Gnosis crypto a good investment? ›

Is Gnosis a good investment? Gnosis cryptocurrency shows a considerable rise which makes it a profitable investment. The cryptocurrency market is highly volatile, so there is no universal consensus that the price will go high.

Where is Gnosis based? ›

Gnosis is located in Gibraltar, Gibraltar, Gibraltar . Who invested in Gnosis ? Gnosis has 38 investors including Polymorphic Capital and Tiger Global Management .

Is Gnosis centralized? ›

The Merge transitioned Gnosis to a fully decentralized and permissionless Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network secured by approximately 111,111 validators making it the third most decentralized network behind Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Is Gnosis an open source? ›

What is Gnosis V2? An open-source repository of smart contracts for Gnosis version 2. Developers can use code as templates, inspiration, or learning material to build better smart contracts.

What is Gnosis Safe proxy? ›

The Gnosis Safe is a multi-signature smart contract wallet that allows users to define a list of owner/signer accounts and a threshold number of signers required to confirm a transaction. Once the threshold of owner accounts have confirmed a transaction, the Safe transaction can be executed.

What is a multi sig wallet? ›

August 17th, 2022 / Security. A MultiSig wallet is a digital wallet that operates with multisignature addresses. This means that it requires more than one private key to sign and authorize a crypto transaction or, in some cases, that several different keys can be used to generate a signature.

Can a smart contract be destroyed? ›

Smart contracts are immutable, meaning the contract cannot be changed once deployed. So, if a bug or security flaw is found on the smart contract after deployment, it can not be fixed. Destroying the smart contract is the only viable option in this case.

Where does the money go in a smart contract? ›

A fee is paid by whoever generated the smart contract, and miners write it into Ethereum's main chain forever. It can never be changed, reversed or altered.

Can smart contracts be hacked? ›

One of the reasons for this weakness is that smart contracts are only as secure as their underlying blockchain platform. Secondly, hackers could exploit vulnerabilities in the smart contract code, such as reentrancy, bad randomness, and time manipulation, in order to steal funds.

Can we hack a smart contract? ›

Yes, smart contracts can be hacked in many ways, especially if the blockchain engineer creates an initially flawed contract with bugs and security vulnerabilities. The smart contract within a blockchain cannot be changed, so it's immutable and immune to manipulation.

How do I make sure my smart contract is safe? ›

Smart contract code should be written so it can be paused when things go wrong, and a well-thought-out upgrade path for bug fixes should be in place. Common methods of boosting security include the use of smart contract security audits and bug bounties, which crowdsource the security audit process.

Can you withdraw from private key wallet? ›

A private key is a large alphanumeric code with hundreds of digits. A cryptocurrency wallet consists of a set of public addresses and private keys. Anyone can deposit cryptocurrency in a public address, but funds cannot be removed from an address without the corresponding private key.

Is a crypto wallet a smart contract? ›

The wallet sends a notification for you to confirm the transaction by signing a message. New smart contract crypto wallets not only store your private keys but also provide access to decentralized applications (dapps) and the Web3 economy, allowing you to participate in the new digital landscape.

Is my wallet address my private key? ›

A Wallet Address can only be used to make transactions into such wallet, so it's safe to share with other people for them to make a transfer to your wallet. On the other hand, your Private Key is the set of numbers and letters that allows you to access your wallet.

Is Gnosis Safe open source? ›

All components of the Safe (frontend, backend, contracts) have been open sourced. The core contracts of the Safe have been formally verified, which is the highest security standard for Ethereum-based protocols.

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