_Research

2023_Report on Safe

by Felix Machart, Georg Reichhelm, Markus Hujara – April 12, 2024

Today, >$100B assets are stored in Safes, making Safe the leading platform of smart wallet infrastructure – we are investors in Safe since 2022. Access our initial investment thesis here. Safe proved its anti-fragile strength above all in 2023, when it delivered impressive anti-cyclical growth: In its expanding ecosystem (200 projects), a rapidly growing user base (4.1M new accounts) was way more active (18.3M transactions). We documented this success story by analyzing key metrics and major developments in our 2023_Report on Safe. We are publishing this report today amid another decisive moment in Safe’s journey: The community vote on token transferability.

Access the complete report here.

TL;DR

  • Growth trajectory (2023 figures):
    Over $75B in assets are stored in more than 5.7M Safe smart-accounts, marking a 475% YoY growth. Stablecoins dominate the assets held in Safe accounts, accounting for over 60% of the total value secured.
  • Market expansion:
    Safe is shifting its public perception toward an Account Abstraction wallet and infrastructure layer for self-custody of funds rather than a multi-signature wallet allowing Safe to target a wider market. Meanwhile, the additional onboarding of three prominent Layer-2 chains allows users to store assets across multiple blockchain ecosystems: Base, Polygon zkEVM, and zkSync Era.
  • Product differentiation:
    The Safe Protocol splits into Safe {Wallet} and Safe {Core}: Safe {Wallet} focuses on treasury management and infrastructure provision; Safe {Core} concentrates on improving user interaction safety and flexibility. This split gives Safe a promising foundation to attract third-party developers to its core product while also maintaining its wallet interface for easy end-user interactions.
  • Monetization:
    SafeDAO achieves key milestones for SAFE token transferability and listing is on track for the current quarter.

Access the complete report here.