Announcing: Safe Grants Program Wave 1 Grantees

After a multi-month process that involved voting on a SafeDAO SEP, electing a Grants Council, and evaluating applications, we are thrilled to finally announce the grantees of our very first wave of the Safe Grants Program!

Across four strategic categories of Build, Growth, Research, and Govern, we have selected a total of 21 teams poised to take the Safe ecosystem to greater heights in their areas of expertise. From building out critical public goods tooling, exciting growth-focused use cases to further decentralizing Safe, and cross-chain Smart Accounts, the following grantee projects will receive a total of EUR 500,000 in funding to reach their predetermined milestones. Check them out:

Build

AbstractionKit – Reference SDK for ERC-4337 with new Safe{Core} Protocol

Candide aims to build the reference SDK for developing Safe-based smart accounts with ERC-4337 using the new Safe{Core} Protocol. AbstractionKit is  an open-source typescript SDK to facilitate seamless integrations, and rigorous compliance testing to ensure adherence to ERC-4337 standards. A social recovery plugin will also be built to augment account recovery options. This reference implementation serves as a blueprint, providing clear guidelines for wallet developers looking to leverage Safe accounts with any open infrastructure for ERC-4337. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/candidelabs Learn more:

Account Recovery with a regulated Swiss Bank

This project aims to provide Safe account owners with a secure and trusted recovery solution, backed by a fully regulated Swiss bank. While the core technology is not novel, the recovery solution will use the programmability of Safe accounts to enable unique recovery methods giving owners complete control of the recovery process. Sygnum, as a regulated entity, adheres to the strictest security, governance, and compliance standards, and will implement a robust recovery process including video identification with in-house experts. By incorporating traditional finance frameworks into the cryptosphere, we aim to combine the best of both worlds, ensuring upmost security and compliance. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/sygnumofficial Learn more:

Cannon

Cannon is a DevOps tool that enables protocol deployments and upgrades on EVM-compatible chains. Currently, upgrading complex protocols owned by Safes involves custom, manual processes. With Cannon, users can run a "build" which conducts any permissionless steps (such as contract deployment) and provides "partial build" information. This can be loaded into the Cannon Deployer, a web app, which can collect signatures and then execute any remaining steps, such as invoking a proxy upgrade function or configuration changes. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/noahlitvin

dSAFE registry

dSAFE registry is a decentralized Safe registry that will enable an alternative way to interact with Safe smart contracts without being reliant on centralized backend architecture. The solution is an SDK that will allow builders to integrate dSAFE registry into their dApps and develop an alternative front-end with dSafe Registry and ComposeDB, hosted on IPFS. This will establish a  decentralized, permissionless and open infrastructure that allows anyone to access and use Safe’s shared data. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/daoism_systems

Eternal Safe – Decentralized Safe{Wallet}

Eternal Safe is a decentralized Safe{Wallet} and web app, which can be compiled and run locally, only requiring an Ethereum (or other EVM network) node. It will also be hosted under an immutable IPFS CID and corresponding ENS name. This means that as long as IPFS, GitHub or anywhere else the code may exist in future are still online, users can have a simple interface from which they can interact with their Safe, even if the centralized components are taken down. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/devanoneth

Extensible Fallbank Handler + Signature Verifier Muxer

This project was developed to meet the lack of a sound extensibility/composable framework to build function handlers or signature verifiers. This framework came about to meet the requirements for doing smart orders on CoW Protocol (Composable CoW). The implementation (already developed) implements new primitives for other applications to be built on top of the Safe{Core} Protocol.

Fluidkey – Privacy Made Simple

There is currently no simple way to protect one’s privacy onchain. Today, users often opt to manually segregate wallets, which becomes increasingly difficult to manage, or to use ZK-based privacy tools which are not easily usable and break compatibility with existing dApps. This solution proposes using stealth addresses as a one-time use “burner” Safe for every transaction that is not only compatible with smart accounts, but is also able to improve privacy in a scalable way across all EVM-compatible chains. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/fluidkey

Liveness Module

At present, smart wallets like Safe{Wallet} have crucial configuration settings, like the owner set, that aren't automatically synced across different chains. This poses some security risks. The module we propose is a communication architecture designed to address this issue. This solution aims to streamline the verification and communication processes during user configuration updates, enhancing the cross-chain user experience for Safe in a chain-agnostic future. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/DeFi_Wonderland

Safe Explorer

There are currently no specific block explorers giving user-friendly interfaces for Safe the safe ecosystem. SafeScan will provide a user-friendly block explorer, which the users of safe wallets can use to view safe account activity and transactions. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/safe_scanner

ZenGuarden

ZenGuarden is a plugin/extension marketplace for smart accounts that will enable developers to build new features efficiently and securely. The plugin marketplace will allow smart account users to easily find and add plugins to their smart contracts, reducing code duplication by developers, streamlining the development process, and risk assessment via onchain audit verification. Follow updates: https://x.com/zenguardxyz Learn more:

Growth

Acme

Acme is building an intent-based network that offers unrivalled on-chain conversion with the lowest development effort, using a Stripe-like approach to reduce both developer friction and user friction in a growing tokenization industry.  Developers can use a single API to create a simplified UX for on-chain intents, which users with zero crypto knowledge can execute in #OneTap. In that one tap, users execute the developer’s intent on-chain using their Safes without needing any apps, seed phrases or gas. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/AcmeOneTap Learn more:

Brahma Console - DeFi Pro Asset Management

Brahma Console unifies on-chain custody with efficient execution. It enables granular team operations through sub-accounts and policy-driven delegation, coupled with automated transaction execution and handling. Console merges Safe's transparent custody with advanced asset management features, ensuring users’ continuous access and recovery for their Safes. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/BrahmaFi Learn more:

Lore: Empowering Communities Through Co-Ownership

Lore develops a protocol and consumer experience that enables mainstream communities to leverage Safe to form, coordinate, and distribute value at an internet scale.  Use cases include crowdsourced media, local impact, community engagement, and art co-creation. Lore is set to roll out V2 of its smart contracts, which will be accompanied by an improved user/consumer experience and distribution to mainstream communities. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/loredotxyz Learn more:

Nest Wallet – A Browser Extension for your Safe

Nest Wallet is building a browser extension and mobile app dedicated to Safe Wallets. Our extension allows users to interact with any dApp, without custom integrations or third-party connections like WalletConnect. Our mobile app enables biometric signing, making Safe easy and secure to use. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/nestwalletxyz Learn more:

StationX

StationX is building tools for communities to coordinate capital leveraging Safe. Their infrastructure enables anyone to spin up NFT or pro-rate ERC20 token based memberships for their community, collect cross-chain deposits from users into a co-owned Safe multisig treasury, and execute day-to-day onchain work like creating programmable drops, distributing tokens, set access controls for specific admins to bypass the signature threshold when interacting with specific dApps, etc. from the dashboard. These modules would be public goods free to use by all Safe users. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/stationxnetwork Learn more:

Research

Challenges and Opportunities of Distributed Cryptography for Safe

This fundamental research project will survey the state of the art in distributed signing protocols and investigate their fit with smart contract wallets and account abstraction. The research will explore which use cases/applications can benefit most from distributed cryptography (in terms of security, privacy and gas costs). Moreover, it will also investigate how threshold wallets can leverage smart contract technology to, for example, realize complex access policies.

How to responsibly incentivize multisig signers?

The project aims to conduct community research with the objective of compiling collective knowledge and providing a comprehensive overview of existing setups for incentivizing multisignature wallet signers. A lack of resources on this topic can lead to suboptimal configurations, resulting in adverse outcomes like significant transaction delays, unresponsive signers, and, in the worst-case scenario, asset losses. Given the scattered nature of available information on this topic, it is imperative to establish a shared educational foundation for both existing and emerging communities. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/bartosjiri_ Learn more:

Safe Anonymization Module

The privacy module will add the ability to manage Safe accounts anonymously using ZKProof technology. With the module enabled, users will be able to manage their Safe accounts without disclosing signers and thereby increase online privacy. While other solutions provide privacy at the level of user asset management and transfers between users, this solution focuses specifically on privacy at the management level of the Safe Wallet, in which there are many multisig participants. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/0xorio

SafeRecover: zk-powered recovery mechanisms

SafeRecover is a Safe plugin that allows Safe owners to recover account ownership when they lose access to their Safe. The plugin will enable multiple recovery methods, including zkTouchID and social recovery by private guardians. Others that can be explored include proof of asset ownership (Recoverer NFT), zk2FA, zkEmail, and other biometric methods such as FaceID or voice recognition. Follow updates: https://x.com/porco_rosso_j

Govern

StableLab: Enhancing Governance Participation in SafeDAO

This solution aims to streamline SafeDAO's governance process, boost engagement, and foster community contribution by introducing targeted solutions for Governance Facilitation, Community Education, Engagement, and Activation. These will be achieved through resources such as bi-weekly roundups and monthly digests, and a SafeDAO Governance Handbook. Follow updates: https://twitter.com/StableLab

Safe Governance Analytics Dashboard

The Safe Governance Analytics Dashboard aims to provide in-depth insight into governance activities within SafeDAO, with detailed, near real-time analytics tailored to the SafeDAO community's needs. The dashboard will offer user-friendly insights into key governance metrics, to empower SAFE token holders to make informed voting decisions and monitor their delegate activities. This targeted approach aims to substantially increase active governance participation and boost the effectiveness of SafeDAO's decision-making processes. Follow updates: https://x.com/Curia_gov

And that’s it!

Stay tuned for more Safe Grants Program updates as we share and celebrate the milestones from our grantees. If you missed Wave 1, the next wave will be coming up in Q1 2024.

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