Safe Control (Gnosis Safe)
Currently supported chains are Ethereum Mainnet and Binance Smart Chain (BSC/BNB). More chains will be added as suitable bridges are made available.
Why Colony and Safe?
Safe (formerly Gnosis Safe) has established itself as a secure way to store and manage crypto assets for individuals and organizations. Safe provides a multi-signature framework, whereby in order for transactions to be made within a Safe, a set number of on-chain signatures are required to approve it. This makes self-custodial fund management more secure, especially for DAOs with large treasuries.
Integrating a Safe with your colony unlocks the ability to use DAO governance mechanisms to manage assets held within a Safe. This makes for a more decentralized, scalable, and trustless fund management system.
How can it be used?
Essentially, all actions you would like to perform from your Safe can now be controlled by a colony using Colony's governance mechanisms—most notably the Motions process.
These actions include basic features such as transferring tokens and managing NFTs, to advanced capabilities such as arbitrary contract interactions. In the past, DAO treasury Safes have relied on a trusted band of multi-sig holders (usually core team members or elected treasury managers). Now, DAOs can decentralize the management of treasury Safes by utilizing Colony's governance processes and giving every DAO contributor a seat at the table.
This integration also works across chains, so colonies hosted on the Gnosis Chain can manage Safes on Ethereum Mainnet or BSC.
How it all works
This integration works using an Arbitrary Message Bridge (AMB) for cross-chain communication and a Safe feature called Modules.
Arbitrary Message Bridge (AMB): The purpose of an AMB is to transfer arbitrary data between two networks, for example between Ethereum and Gnosis Chain. This data can be used to send a message to a contract on the other network and execute a transaction. You can read more about AMBs here.
Safe Modules: Modules allow for external contracts to interact with a Safe and initiate transactions which can skip the need for the required number of signatures to approve the transaction. This elevates the functionality of a Safe to work with more scalable governance mechanisms.
Next step
The following pages will detail the steps required to set up a Safe to be controlled by your colony.
See adding a Safe.