The latest survey of Web3 developers reveals their continued drive to develop in the Web3.0 space, despite regulatory uncertainties and concerns about diminishing funding. Lukas Schor, co-founder of Safe, is actively fostering growth in this area. He recently introduced the groundbreaking Safe{AAcelerator}, the world's first account abstraction acceleration program, which provides knowledge and funding for the use of Safe{Core}, Safe's developer toolkit. Account abstraction, a technology that streamlines the technicalities of self-custody for a more Web2-like experience, is gaining rapid adoption among developers looking to expand their user base. We sat down with Lucas to take a closer look at the future of account abstraction and learn about Safe's strategy for advancing technology. Here's our Q&A with Lucas Schor.
Q: What is Safe’s origin story? How has the project evolved over the years to become what it is today?
Safe – formerly “Gnosis Safe” – originated in 2018 as a project within the GnosisDAO, with the goal of establishing a smart wallet fit for multiple users and Web3 projects. Our team were early developers of account abstraction – the technology behind smart accounts – which enables multiple keys to access a smart wallet, abstraction of the dreaded seed phrases and social recovery.
Over time as the project expanded, there was a community proposal to spin off from GnosisDAO and the project became Safe, with an independent SafeDAO ecosystem and Safe token. We continue to collaborate with Gnosis on projects, most recently with the launch of Gnosis Pay which utilizes Safe smart accounts.
Now, Safe has expanded to serve a number of use cases and has become the leading self-custody platform and wallet infrastructure provider, securing approximately ~52 billion in assets for Web3 native projects and individual asset holders. It is used by the largest DAOs in the world and also by the likes of Vitalik Buterin, Punk6529 for self-custody of their personal assets.
To further accelerate the adoption of Web3, we launched Safe{Core}, which gives developers access to Safe’s toolkit for smart accounts, so that they can create and implement smart account solutions. As a strong advocate for developer collaboration and resource-sharing, this is something I’m personally really excited about.
Q: In your opinion, what are the greatest barriers to mass adoption of Web3 at the moment?
User experience remains one of the greatest barriers to widespread adoption and scalability for Web3. Managing complicated seed phrases is just not feasible for the majority of people, and as the use cases for self-custody expands from private users to larger-scale projects, better security mechanisms are needed to protect assets.
Account abstraction provides a solution to this problem by “abstracting” away technical aspects of self-custody to enable what are called “smart accounts” (in contrast to traditional externally-owned accounts (EOA) accounts) providing Web3 users with a Web2-like experience.
For context, account abstraction isn’t new, it’s been an ongoing topic of discussion in the Ethereum community since 2015, although the technology has developed considerably since then. Having the security of Safe along with the strong UX capabilities enabled by Safe{Core} SDK, Mass adoption is already starting to happen. For example- Worldcoin uses Safe Smart Accounts to deploy nearly 2M safe accounts for unique users.
Q: Is account abstraction really the silver bullet to solve all problems associated with self-custody, or do you see any improvements which can be made to this technology?
At this point, the account abstraction ecosystem is growing rapidly, and it is widely accepted in the Ethereum community that we need to transition to smart accounts, which provide a more solid foundation to grow the Web3 user base.
But while account abstraction has enabled significant improvements in user experience, smart accounts still have some disadvantages compared to traditional EOA accounts, both for developers and users. Smart Accounts themselves introduce fresh challenges and these need a unified standard. Otherwise, we face fragmentation and walled gardens akin to Web2.
With this in mind, Safe recently published a whitepaper with the first design of the Safe{Core} Protocol, outlining a plan to transition to interoperable modular smart accounts.
As demand for self-custody grows and the Web3 space expands, development of account abstraction tools needs to be made more efficient. Modular smart accounts need to be maintained to be composable, meaning that developers can reuse components from different products, allowing for customizability and more efficient use of code.
Furthermore, modular accounts are vendor agnostic and portable just like a Metamask account, so that users can transfer their accounts to another platform as they see fit, rather than being locked into one vendor. This offers users greater sovereignty over their assets.
Since 2018, Safe has seen the value of modular smart accounts in providing secure and adaptable self-custody solutions. Now Safe is promoting interoperability and modularity in a unified standard with the goal of accelerating smart account adoption.
Q: What challenges are Web3 builders currently facing when building smart account solutions? How is Safe working to foster Web3 developer talent?
There is a lot of enthusiasm for account abstraction in the industry at the moment, especially following the publication of Vitalik’s “The Three Transitions” essay earlier this summer. From Denver to Paris, discussions have attracted widespread attention. Developers are looking to grow their user base, and removing technical barriers to adoption is a top priority.
That being said, accelerating the adoption of account abstraction requires widespread access to developer tools and support. With the launch of Safe{Core} in March 2023, Safe has provided developers with access to a modular and open-source stack. Now over 190 projects are integrated with Safe’s SDK, primarily through organic traction, with use cases ranging from identity, NFTs, DeFi, DAOs, and many more.
The biggest pain point for developers is that current smart account implementations are too fragmented and they cannot reuse components across different smart accounts. With a unified and interoperable standard, we aim to solve the DevX and secure and usable infra for them to build on.
Safe is encouraging Web3 developers by also launching Safe{AAcelerator}, the world’s first account abstraction accelerator program which provides founders and builders with knowledge and funding to utilize Safe{Core}.
Q: Seems like you’ve had a busy and exciting year. What’s in store for Safe in the upcoming months?
We’re looking to provide even more opportunities for developers to connect and collaborate. On the 10th of September, Safe will host the very first SafeCon in Berlin, where we look forward to providing a networking space for developers to learn and share further details about Safe{Core} Protocol. As a part of Berlin Blockchain Week, this event will be the first of its kind to focus on accelerating the transition to smart accounts.
On the 14th of September, during TOKEN2049 Singapore, we are also hosting an event Web3 Transitions Summit around the same topics, bringing together leading experts in Web3 to discuss the future of this space, including Vitalik Buterin as a keynote speaker.
If you would like to keep up to date with Safe and our future developments, you can follow us on Twitter.
