Safe
The most audited contracts in our entire rating — Runtime Verification, OpenZeppelin, Ackee and Certora — securing a large share of the industry’s treasuries.
- Founded
- 2018
- Registered
- Germany
- Site
- safe.global
The short answer
Its contracts are the most audited in this entire rating — Runtime Verification, OpenZeppelin, Ackee and Certora among the reviewers — which is what you want from the smart-contract account standard securing a very large share of the industry’s treasuries and multisigs. It also publishes the most honest swap fee here, a full tiered schedule rather than a percentage buried in a support article. The distinction that matters most is that a smart-contract account is a different product from a keypair wallet, not a better one.
Key facts
| Audits | The most audited contracts in our entire rating — Runtime Verification, OpenZeppelin, Ackee and Certora among themas of 14 Jul 2026 |
|---|---|
| What it secures | A very large share of the treasuries and multisigs in this industryas of 14 Jul 2026 |
| Swap fee disclosure | A full tiered schedule — the most honestly published fee in this ratingas of 14 Jul 2026 |
| Product type | A smart-contract account, not a keypair wallet: multiple signers, thresholds and recovery are properties of the contractas of 14 Jul 2026 |
A smart-contract account is a different product, not a safer one
A normal wallet is a keypair: one secret, one signature, total control to whoever holds it. Safe is a contract that holds assets and executes when a threshold of approved signers agrees. That changes the failure modes rather than removing them.
What it removes is the single point of failure. No one compromised key empties a three-of-five Safe, lost access can be recovered by the remaining signers, and spending rules can be written into the account itself. For a treasury, a shared fund or anyone whose loss would be catastrophic and unrecoverable, that is the correct structure and a keypair is not.
What it adds is a contract in the path. Your funds now depend on code as well as on keys, which is why the audit record matters so much here and why Safe’s is the most extensive in this rating: Runtime Verification, OpenZeppelin, Ackee and Certora among the firms that have reviewed it. It also adds operational complexity — signers must be available, thresholds must be right, and a badly configured Safe can lock funds as effectively as a lost seed phrase.
The part most users underestimate is that the contract is only half the system. What you approve arrives through an interface, and an interface can be compromised without the contract being touched. The largest exchange theft on record reached Bybit through a compromised third-party signing tool rather than through broken contracts — which is the failure mode this product class needs to be judged on, and it is a supply-chain question rather than an audit question.
The most honestly published fee in the rating
Safe publishes its swap fee as a full tiered schedule. That sounds like a small thing and it is the best fee disclosure in this entire rating.
The comparison is the point. MetaMask adds a charge on top of the route it selects, disclosed away from the screen where you approve. Kraken’s staking APYs exclude its commission by its own admission. Coinbase states a retail rate without the take rate behind it. The category norm is a number that is true and incomplete.
A tiered schedule you can read before trading tells you what you will pay at your size. It is the minimum a user should expect and it is rare enough that we score it as a distinguishing feature rather than a baseline — which says more about the category than about Safe.
Incident record
No recorded incidents since 2018, verified 14 Jul 2026.
In our ratings
Compared with
Our coverage of Safe
- How to spot a fake proof of reserves27 Sept 2026
- Bitget loses $351.6m — and the fund it says covers it is one we could not verify25 Sept 2026
- Is Kraken safe? The evidence, and what it lacks25 Sept 2026
- What happens to your coins if an exchange goes bankrupt23 Sept 2026
- Is Coinbase safe? What its own filings say19 Sept 2026
- How to move crypto off an exchange, step by step17 Sept 2026
- Token approvals: the permission that drains wallets15 Sept 2026
- What "not your keys, not your coins" leaves out9 Sept 2026
- The seed phrase mistakes that cost people everything7 Sept 2026
- Hardware wallet or software wallet: how to decide5 Sept 2026
Questions people ask
What is Safe?
A smart-contract account: assets are held by a contract that executes when a threshold of approved signers agrees, rather than by a single keypair. It secures a very large share of the treasuries and multisigs in this industry, and its contracts are the most audited in our rating.
Is Safe safer than a normal wallet?
Different, not strictly safer. It removes the single point of failure — no one compromised key drains a three-of-five Safe — and adds a contract in the path plus operational complexity. A badly configured Safe can lock funds as effectively as a lost seed phrase.
Was Safe involved in the Bybit hack?
The largest exchange theft on record reached Bybit through a compromised third-party signing tool rather than through broken contracts. It is the failure mode this product class should be judged on: an interface can be compromised without the audited contract being touched at all.
Who should use Safe?
Anyone whose loss would be catastrophic and unrecoverable — a treasury, a shared fund, a DAO — where multiple signers and written spending rules are the correct structure. For a single user holding a modest amount, a hardware wallet is simpler and has fewer ways to go wrong.
What changed
- 27 Sept 2026 — Profile published.