SAFE, the popular Multiparty Crypto design book, formerly called Gnosis Safe, has launched a new development unit, Safe Labs, in a step aimed at consolidating its operation and tightening its product dribbling after it was targeted in February’s $ 1.4 billion bybit -the largest crypto -heist to date.
The new unit will serve as the core development arm for SAFE, which so far had outsourced technical work to a separate development company, said a structure that was often used across the crypto industry, Safe Lab’s CEO Rahul Rumalla on Wednesday. Safe Labs works directly under the umbrella of the SAFE Foundation, a nonprofit organization.
In an interview with Coindesk, Rumalla said the transition reflects a broader strategy change against construction products that can meet both the ideological standards of Cypherpunk culture and the practical requirements of corporate customers.
“This framework that we are forced to operate in – it actually forces you to compromise one over the other: If you want more security, you have to compromise with the convenience and if you want more convenience, you compromise with certainty,” Rumalla said.
“We at Safe Labs, we step back and reject this framework. We do not want to operate in this model where we have to compromise with the other.”
Post-Hack Pivot
According to Rumalla, Bybit Hack was a “catalyst” to create safe laboratories.
While Safes Core Smart Contracts remained uncompromising, its user-facing web application was infiltrated with malicious code by North Korea’s Lazarus group. This attack allowed the hackers to fool Bybit’s CEO to log on to a transaction that redirected funds to their control.
“What we saw with an attack like this is that our core values were used against us,” Rumalla said. “Anonymity, privacy, self-insurance, transparency, open source-theses were used against us.”
Despite the violation, Rumalla said the user’s confidence in the safe platform remained strong. The application saw “virtually no churn” in the wake of and continues to process 10% of all transaction volume across Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) -compatible network.
“We are not defending against cyberattacks,” Rumalla said. “We defend cyber warning, and it requires a mindset shift – not only at project level, not at the company level, but as Ethereum or even Crypto as a whole.”
From ideals to infrastructure
The move to formalize internal development repeats similar shifts from other major protocols, including Morfo and Polygon, both of which have recently made features to streamline decision making and improve accountability with more traditional organizational structures.
In parallel, Safe Labs also focuses on product design. The team is currently working on a “V2” version of its wallet, which Rumalla described as more “meaningful” – meaning that the bold product direction, especially for institutional users.
“What we want to launch and test in the future is a subscription plan, essentially, called Safe Pro – or are safe for companies that are safe for institutions – a lot around that area,” he said. “We will basically pack this meaningful product that is more for the user segments that have higher security needs and more adaptation appetite.”
“We have to operate at start -up speed,” Rumalla added. “That in itself is the prerequisite for why we need to act as a separate, independent device. We need to customize where we need to adapt to which is on the mission, but we have to be a little more independent in terms of how we perform.”
With more than $ 60 billion in the total value locked and over $ 1 trillion in historic transaction volume, according to Rumalla, Safe is still one of Crypto’s most combat -tested self -insurance platforms. The team, now approx. 40 strong and based in Berlin, aims for its next chapter to embrace the meaningful product design without sacrificing its open source-ethos-will help define how wallets look in a world heading for a billion dollar on chain economy.
“Our mission is simple: to make self -denial easy and safe,” Rumalla said. “It’s a victory for everyone.”
