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Gnosis History

Last updated: March 2026

Origins​

2017​

  • Gnosis (GNO) launched via Dutch auction
  • April 2017: Public sale of 10M GNO

Early Years​

  • Prediction markets (Gnosis Predict)
  • Conditional tokens
  • Building infrastructure for decentralized systems

Key Milestones​

2021–2022​

  • Gnosis Chain growth
  • Safe adoption surge
  • DeFi ecosystem expansion

January 2025: GIP-116​

  • Major treasury operation
  • Burned 3.15M GNO
  • Target: 3M total supply
  • Diversified treasury assets

May 2025: HQ.xyz Investment​

  • $8.95M investment
  • On-chain business banking focus
  • Asian expansion

November–December 2025​

  • Balancer V2 Exploit (Nov 2025): $9.4M exploited from Balancer V2 on Gnosis Chain
  • Hard Fork (Dec 22, 2025): Validators executed hard fork to recover $9.4M
  • GIP-143 (Nov 2025): Terminated Karpatkey (KPK) treasury management (88% approval)

Early 2026​

  • Gnosis App launched as PWA (native app coming H1 2026)
  • "Gnosis 3.0" vision announced — unifying Gnosis Chain, Safe, CoW Swap, and Gnosis Pay
  • Noctua (Noca) selected as new treasury manager (Feb 2026)
  • Safe revenue growth ($600B volume, 41.6M total accounts, $10M+ ARR)
  • Gnosis Pay growth ($131M+ card volume)

Governance Evolution​

Early Process​

  • Informal community discussions
  • Simple voting mechanisms

Current Process​

  • Formal GIP process
  • Forum → Temperature Check → Snapshot
  • Quorum: 75,000 GNO

Challenges​

  • High quorum failure rate (~33%)
  • Low retail participation
  • Treasury management scrutiny

Product Evolution​

Gnosis Safe → Safe​

  • Rebranded to "Safe"
  • Focus on smart accounts
  • Enterprise adoption

Gnosis Pay​

  • From concept to $131M+ volume
  • Visa partnership
  • Real-world payments

Gnosis Chain​

  • Established EVM-compatible L1 sidechain (not an L2; has its own independent validator set)
  • 144,000+ validators (as of March 2026)
  • DeFi ecosystem growth