Feb 8
Gnosis Safe from Harmony One — A Hands on Overview & How to Guide
Gnosis Safe from Harmony is an amazing tool that can keep your digital assets safe and secure yet liquid so you can do various transactions on the fly.
According to Harmony Protocol “The Gnosis Safe is a smart contract wallet with multi-signature functionality at its core.”
Harmony created this tool to mainly service their massive vision to support 10,000 DAOs by 2026.
This tool has much more applications than DAOs and can help keep your digital assets safe until you need to use them.
Building from the grown up 2 DAOs the Harmony Pay and Harmony UK DAO
I found it a bit challenging to use at the beginning. Also some of the team members had a difficulty to understand how this Gnosis Safe operates.
A bit of trial and error and experimentation I compiled this stage by stage example.
This is a hands on example of how to make a transaction from one DAO to another and can be applied to various other scenarios which I recommend in the end of this article.
Of course there is more functionality and the tool will keep involving.
Lets dive in
I assume that you have followed the instructions to set up your Gnosis Safe here and you have Metamask working with it.
I am using 2 DAOs with a Gnosis Safe each setup. I will be transferring
1 $ONE from one to another explaining in detail the process.
Open your Safe (I assume at this point you are connected with your Metamask wallet) and you are one of the Cosignatories added to the Safe — see towards the end of this article.
Any Cosignatory that has been added in the list in the Gnosis Safe can trigger a payment or transaction of digital assets.
Then click Assets and next to the balance click Send - assuming in this example you are sending $ONE. Other HRC20 tokens and Collectibles can be sent as well.
Another way (The Official way) is to click New Transaction and then you have the option to send funds or collectibles.
By the way I will not cover receiving transaction as I think it is self explanatory. There is also Contract Interaction in the options but that is to be investigated how it functions at a later time.
Add the recipient wallet address by typing it or if you have saved contacts chose one of them or you can click the little QR icon to use a camera to scan a QR code of a wallet address. Make sure you always use the ETH Harmony One wallet address of a recipient. One address wallets I am sure will be used in the future. However at the moment Metamask is used and you must use the Hex Ethereum address.
Click Execute
Metamask Pops and click sign in
That is it you have done your bit. Now the remainder of the cosignatories need to approve and execute this transaction. The cosignatories can be one or more person(s), it depends how you have set up your DAO.
For this example there are only two cosignatories.
Remember cosignatories are responsible to communicate with each other and make sure they approve transactions and are active members of the DAO. This avoids delays and a DAO getting a bad reputation as a bad payer or disorganised.
One thing is Decentralised and another is Disorganised !!
The cosignatory once they open the Gnosis Safe and connect their wallet- use the wallet that have been designated to be part of the DAO project.
apron connecting your wallet as a cosignatory you will receive a notifications that there is a requirement to approve transactions. You might have to click at the Transactions tab on the left sometime and then the message appears so it is a good practice to regularly communicate with other team members so transactions are not missed
Click Transactions
Click the arrow next to the Awaiting Transactions to reveal the drop down menu and there you will see “Confirm” or “Reject”. Assumed you have talked to your other partners and agreed with them, you can press confirm for this transaction.
Another Window pops up
There is an “Execute Transaction” tick box. Assuming you are the last cosignatory you have the also the power to execute this transaction.
However if your DAO is formed in a way that only one cosignatory is “The Executor” approve this transaction but leave this box unticked.
In this example the second cosignatory is also the executor so the tick box is left ticked.
Then click approve and let Metamask do its magic!
Note all in the team can see who the executor was
If for any reason a cosignatory or the original transaction instigator changes their mind or most important see something is not right or feel that the transaction could be a scam they can withdraw their approval anytime prior to the executor signs the transaction. It is easy just click “Reject”
Assume all went well the recipient will get their payment
As you can see you can transact and save any HRC20 or any other Harmony assets. You can also use Harmony’s interposable bridges to bring into your safe other assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum.
And that is it.
There can be many cosignatories and for a DAO I believe there should be at least 5 and 3 at any time can approve a transaction and one being the designated Executor.
Adding cosignatories is is easy and safe. Some may thing if a collective or DAO asks them for their Metamask wallet address to add them in the list it is a scam.
Well first of all you are only sharing your wallet address like as if you where doing it to receive a payment. Never ever share your wallets words or private key.
Any DAO that asks you for the later they are scamming 100%.
Anyway, if you wish to keep your wallet private you can always create a wallet for DAO functions and community participation.
Here is the fun bit
The example was for DAO operations.
You can use Harmony Gnosis Safe for private use to safeguard your assets, coins, tokens and collectibles. You can create a safe with 3 wallets and only transactions can happen if 2 out of your 3 wallets can approve a transactions or transfer.
This is not only fab protecting your Investments, also in case you lose one of your wallets or one wallet is compromised by hackers or scammers or you lost one wallet details you still can access your Precious!
You can go to paranoid mode and add 4 or 6 wallets and 3–5 cosignatories or more whatever makes you feel safe basically.
In Conclusion
Gnosis Safe from Harmony is an easy safe tool to use and run your DAO, project or privately safeguard your assets and investments.
I am sure it will keep evolving so keep an eye on its latest evolutions and at some point this article will become obsolete as the Gnosis Safe will become intuitive with a user friendly app and UI for anyone to use.
