The number of EVM networks and appchains continues to grow. New L1s and L2s (both general-purpose and application-specific chains) launch every month.

What increasingly differentiates successful networks is whether they launch as ecosystems that are institutionally ready and legitimate to attract users and liquidity.

A defining feature of many of the strongest recent network launches is that their foundations, treasuries, and governance operate on Safe. We’re referring to these networks as the Safe Standard List.

New chains such as Monad, HyperEVM and Base launched with Safe as their operational backbone, giving builders and capital a familiar, trusted foundation from day one.

The Safe Standard List is for the networks that have made a clear decision: to run their foundations, treasuries, governance, and critical onchain operations on Safe as core infrastructure.

The Safe Standard List maps directly to the questions that builders, funds, and institutions ask when choosing where to build or deploy:

• Can serious treasuries operate securely from day one?

• Will blue-chip protocols like Morpho and Aave consider you to be trustworthy and legitimate?

• Can capital and protocols deploy immediately?

• Can your user operate on your network from the same Safe-Wallet UI as from all other live networks?

Being included on the Safe Standard List reflects an operational setup chosen at launch.

When a network launches with Safe as its standard for foundation treasuries, governance, and protocol operations, it aligns itself with infrastructure that builders and capital already trust. That alignment has practical consequences from the first days of a network’s life. 

What Networks Need on Day One

Despite differences in architecture or use case, new general-purpose networks and purpose-built chains tend to face the same foundational requirements at launch.

They need a credible DeFi surface that signals to builders and protocols that the ecosystem is worth engaging with. They need clear, low-friction paths for capital to enter the network. And they need institutional-grade custody and governance for foundations, councils, and core infrastructure teams.

These are not growth features. They are prerequisites for legitimacy.

Networks that defer these decisions often lose momentum, spending their early months assembling bespoke solutions or negotiating one-off arrangements with partners. With Safe, the operational baseline is not something to build toward – it exists at launch.

Familiar Standards Reduce Coordination Costs

Safe has become the default account, custody, and governance standard across a large part of the onchain economy. Foundations, DAOs, protocol teams, and funds already operate using Safe across Ethereum and other established chains.

When a new network standardises on Safe, it does not introduce a new operational model. It extends existing ones into a new environment.

Builders deploy with an account standard they already understand. DAOs and protocols operate treasuries and governance as expected. Capital is secured using infrastructure that has been tested at scale.

This continuity lowers the barrier to early participation and makes the network easier to engage with from day one.

Capital Flows Where the Standard Infrastructure Is Live 

Time-to-TVL is often treated as a marketing challenge, but in practice, it is often an infrastructure issue.

Capital moves when the path is clear and familiar. Safe-powered networks are visible alongside Ethereum and major L2s in the Safe interface, with native support for bridging and swapping that routes assets directly into the network.

Users and funds do not need to adopt new workflows or external tooling just to participate. Capital arrives through the same interfaces already used elsewhere.

The result is early economic activity that reflects real confidence in the network’s operational setup.

Institution-Ready from the Start

For foundations and core teams, legitimacy is closely tied to how treasuries and governance are handled.

Serious organisations require multi-party controls, clear approval flows, and infrastructure that can withstand scrutiny from partners, auditors, and institutional stakeholders. Retrofitting these systems after launch is costly and often disruptive.

Safe provides this operational baseline from the outset. Foundation treasuries, governance councils, upgrade mechanisms, and protocol operations can be secured on infrastructure that is already recognised as the industry standard.

This readiness materially shapes how networks are perceived by partners and institutions considering early engagement.

How a Network Qualifies for the Safe Standard List

​​A network is included on the Safe Standard List when its foundation, treasury, and governance infrastructure are hosted and operated with Safe by the Safe core team – the builders and foremost experts on multi-sig.

In practice, this means foundation and DAO treasuries, governance, and critical network operations run on Safe infrastructure set up and maintained in collaboration with Safe Labs.

The qualification is intentional and visible. It reflects how the network chooses to operate, not how it positions itself.

The Safe Standard List: A Shared Signal Among Serious Networks

As more networks adopt Safe as their operational backbone, a clear pattern has emerged.

The Safe Standard List refers to a defined class of networks that standardise on Safe for foundation treasuries, protocol, and ecosystem treasury management, governance, councils, and critical onchain operations.

This is not a partial integration or a loose affiliation. Networks in this category run their core operations on Safe by default.

The distinction is intentionally binary. A network either meets this standard or it does not.

For builders, funds, and institutions, the Safe Standard List functions as a shortcut for evaluation.A Network on Safe signals Safe-grade security, ecosystem readiness through familiar account and treasury standards from day one, and institutional credibility without reliance on legacy custodians or bespoke custody solutions.

Crucially, this setup makes it easier for networks to attract and support a broad, high-quality ecosystem – from DeFi protocols and asset issuers to data providers, funds, traders, and new builders – without requiring custom operational or custody workflows.

Over time, this becomes a quality stamp. It reflects infrastructure choices that are visible, verifiable, and difficult to imitate superficially.

A Deliberate and Visible Standard

To reflect this shift, Safe is formalising this standard through a public registry of networks on Safe – the Safe Standard List.

Inclusion on the list will initially be limited to a small number of networks already in the pipeline, with additions made deliberately rather than opportunistically. The aim is not exclusion for its own sake, but clarity. A standard only works if it remains meaningful.

Over time, the list will grow. The criteria will remain consistent.

Raising the Baseline for Network Launches

As the ecosystem matures, expectations are changing.

Launching a chain is no longer sufficient. Launching a rich ecosystem that is legitimate, institutionally ready, and trusted by builders and capital from day one is the new baseline.

Networks that standardise on Safe are choosing to meet that baseline immediately. They are not optimising for short-term optics, but for long-term legitimacy.

That distinction is becoming increasingly visible.

There are networks on the Safe Standard List. And then there is everyone else.

Safe{Wallet}

10 February 2026

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