Safe, the popular multi -party cryptographic wallet called Gnosis Safe, has launched a new development unit, Safe Labs, in a movement destined to consolidate its operations and sharpen its product roadmap after it was directed in the Hack of $ 1.4 billion February, the largest crypto cripo trick to date.
The new entity will serve as the Safe Central Development Arm, which until now had subcontracted the technical work to a separate development company, a structure commonly used throughout the cryptographic industry, Safe Labs executive, Rahul Rumalla, said on Wednesday. Safe Labs will operate directly under the umbrella of the SAFE Foundation, a non -profit organization.
In an interview with COINDESK, Rumalla said that the transition reflects a broader change of strategy towards the construction of products that can satisfy both the ideological standards of Cypherpunk culture and the practical demands of business clients.
“This framework in which we are forced to operate, actually forces him to compromise one on the other: if he wants more security, he must commit to comfort, and if he wishes more convenience, he undertakes with security,” Rumalla said.
“In Safe Labs, we go back and reject this frame. We do not want to operate in this model where we have to compromise one on the other.”
Pivot after hack
According to course, the Bybit trick was a “catalyst” for the creation of safe laboratories.
Although Safe’s Core’s intelligent contracts remained without commitments, their user -oriented web application was infiltrated with malicious code by the North Korean Lázaro group. That attack allowed the computer pirates to deceive the Bybit CEO to sign a transaction that redested the funds in their control.
“What we saw with an attack like this is that our central values were used against us,” Rumalla said. “Anonymity, privacy, autocustody, transparency, open source: these were used against us.”
Despite the violation, Rumalla said that user’s confidence on the safe platform remained strong. The application saw “virtually no rotation” in the sequels and continues to process 10% of the entire volume of transactions in the networks compatible with Virtual Machine Ethereum (EVM).
“We are not defending against cyber attacks,” Rumalla said. “We are defending cyber war, and that requires a change of mentality, not only at the project level, not at the company’s level, but as Ethereum or even crypto as a whole.”
Of infrastructure ideals
The movement to formalize internal development echoes similar changes to other important protocols, including Morpho and Polygon, which have recently made movements to optimize decision making and improve responsibility with more traditional organizational structures.
At the same time, Safe Labs is also being forwarded in product design. Currently, the team is working on a “V2” version of its wallet, which was described as “stubborn”, which means a bolder product address, particularly for institutional users.
“What we are going to launch and try in the future is a subscription plan, essentially, called Safe Pro, or sure for companies, safe for institutions, very around that area,” he said. “Basically, we are going to pack this stubborn product that is more for user segments that have the greatest security needs and more customization appetite.”
“We need to operate at start speed,” he added. “That in itself is the premise of why we need to operate as a separate and independent entity. We need to align where we need to align, which is in the mission, but we need to be a bit more independent in terms of how we execute.”
With more than $ 60 billion in total value blocked and more than $ 1 billion in historical volume of transactions, according to Rumalla, Safe remains one of the most proven autocustody platforms of Crypto Battle. The team, now approximately 40 strong and based in Berlin, is betting that its next chapter, one that covers an obstinated products without sacrificing its open source spirit, will help define how wallets are seen in a world that is directed towards an economy of billion dollars in the chain.
“Our mission is simple: make the self -complacency easy and safe,” Rumalla said. “That is a victory for everyone.”
