Safe{Con}2 Unveils Groundbreaking Advances in Account Abstraction and Smart Accounts

The conference was held by smart account infrastructure provider Safe during Berlin Blockchain Week 2024 and saw new announcements from Safe, Scroll, WalletConnect, Rhinestone, and others.

Berlin, Germany - May 24, 2024 - Safe, the leading smart account infrastructure with over $100 billion in digital assets secured on Safe smart accounts, hosted the second edition of Safe{Con} at Spindler & Klatt, Berlin, on Thursday, May 23, bringing together leading industry developers, experts, users, and investors in the digital asset ownership space. Held as part of Berlin Blockchain Week 2024, the conference saw several significant announcements from projects at the forefront of the transition to smart accounts and self-custodial solutions for ownership. 

The one-day event featured more than 50 projects within the Web3 space, offering attendees an extensive range of panel discussions, keynotes, and exclusive networking opportunities. Several high-profile Safe developments were also announced on the day, underscoring Safe's innovation and leadership in digital ownership.

Speaking about the success of Safe{Con}2, Lukas Schor, Co-Founder at Safe, said, "Safe strives to lead the development of the digital ownership economy powered by Web3; Safe{Con}2 was a milestone event in bringing this goal to reality. The innovations unveiled by WalletConnect, Scroll, Rhinestone, HQxyz, and many other Safe ecosystem projects are astounding. The ambition and sophistication demonstrated by the many announcements at this year's conference reflect the strides being made in bringing about a new paradigm for digital asset ownership made possible by smart accounts.” 

Richard Meissner, Christoph Simmchen, Tobias Schubotz, and Lukas Schor on stage talking about the Future of Safe, Moderated by Blockworks Macauley Peterson

Highlight announcements made at Safe{Con}2 included:

Vitalik Buterin Charts Path for Ethereum Account Abstraction at Safe{Con}

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum closed out Safe{Con} 2024, discussing the future of account abstraction (AA) on Ethereum, emphasizing that while EIP-4337 is a significant step forward, challenges remain. He outlined a roadmap for further development, focusing on ensuring forward compatibility with future Ethereum upgrades, enabling cross-Layer 2 (L2) AA solutions, and improving user-friendliness through measures like separate accounts per L2 with cross-chain replayable key changes. Buterin also stressed the importance of standardizing how Smart account wallets interact with common interfaces and explored the potential of account abstraction to enable new use cases like decentralized payment networks and quantum-safe signatures.

Vitalik Buterin speaking at Safe{Con}2 on @ethereum 's AA roadmap and key problems in account abstraction!

Safe smart account infrastructure and multisig support go live on Scroll 

Safe{Wallet} and Safe{Core} are now available on Scroll, providing developers with powerful tools for on-chain treasury management, including multisig capabilities, advanced modular account abstraction, and sophisticated integration possibilities for decentralized applications. This integration introduces Safe's sophisticated smart wallet capabilities into the Scroll network, designed to provide high scalability and efficient transaction processing while maintaining EVM compatibility. The Scroll community will be able to build with the Safe{Core} account abstraction stack and use Safe{Wallet} for team ops from day one. Read more

Safe{Core} Launches Passkey Logins for Smart Accounts rolling out first on World App.

In a move to simplify onboarding and user experience, Safe{Core}, Safe's account abstraction stack, announced that Passkey logins will be enabled for Safe smart accounts in June. Passkey logins further simplify the accessibility to digital ownership for everyday users while maintaining the tried-and-tested security standards and levels of user trust that has seen Safe grow to secure more than $100 billion in value. Passkeys provide a higher level of accessibility and security by eliminating the need for passwords or seed phrases, which, even when used carefully, are prone to social engineering and phishing attacks. The biggest app utilizing Safe, World App, will roll out this new feature to enable streamlined, built-in authentication methods for the 10M+ people who use the app.  Read more

Scroll Revolutionizes L2 UX with the first tool for cross-chain key management

Scroll, a secure zk-rollup scaling solution for Ethereum, unveiled Keystore, a groundbreaking solution set to transform the Layer 2 user experience and combat fragmentation within the ecosystem. Keystore is a result of a collaborative research effort with Safe, which leverages the power of account abstraction, promising to simplify and unify key management for on-chain activities. Scroll demonstrated the potential of Keystore through a working demo at Safe{Con}2, showcasing its robust functionality and ease of integration.

WalletConnect’s New AppKit and WalletKit to Feature Safe Smart Accounts for Universal Wallets

WalletConnect, the leading web3 UX platform, has announced the integration of Safe smart accounts to power its Universal Wallets, a critical component of the new WalletKit product suite. WalletConnect's Universal Wallets, designed to streamline user onboarding, will leverage Safe smart accounts as the default option, emphasizing WalletConnect's commitment to enhancing user experience and security with a pledge toward smart accounts. With the introduction of 'AppKit' and 'WalletKit' - designed respectively for apps and wallets - WalletConnect is catering to developers and users in the web3 space. The revitalized product suite and feature-focused framework directly address the increasing demand for modular, multi-chain solutions among developers. Read more

Headquarters introduces Visa corporate crypto debit cards for self-custody transactions

Singapore-based startup Headquarters (HQ.xyz) is set to enhance its unified finance platform for Web3 teams through the establishment of new strategic partnerships for crypto-to-fiat payouts as well as the launch of Visa corporate crypto debit cards for self-custody transactions. These integrations add to Headquarters’ unified business account offering, tackling the fragmented systems that impede digital asset adoption, thereby optimising financial operations within the sector. Read more here.

Safe announces support for ERC-7579: Supercharging an open module ecosystem for smart accounts

Safe{Core} will integrate the Safe7579 Adapter, a smart account module co-developed with Rhinestone that will create a bridge between the Safe ecosystem and the emerging ERC-7579 developer community to supercharge the module ecosystem for all smart accounts. This new adapter marks a significant leap forward in the interoperability of smart accounts and gives developers a chance to distribute their smart account modules to Safe’s large ecosystem. The move also aims to build more component reuse and coherence in the smart account ecosystem with cross-compatibility of modules across different accounts like Zerodev's Kernel and Biconomy's smart account.

Cross Section of the audience at Safe{Con}2

About Safe

Safe (previously Gnosis Safe) is an on-chain asset custody protocol, securing ~$100 Billion in assets today. It is establishing a universal ‘smart account' standard for secure custody of digital assets, data, and identity. With Safe{Wallet}, its flagship web and mobile wallet, and Safe{Core} account abstraction infrastructure, Safe is on a mission to unlock digital ownership for everyone in web3 including DAOs, enterprises, retail and institutional users. 

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