Safe has moved its transaction-security network out of beta. Safenet Aegis went live in production on October 15, 2026, covering Ethereum Mainnet, Gnosis Chain, and Arbitrum.
The idea is to check a transaction before it executes and, if the user opts in, stop the bad ones onchain. Warning pop-ups are helpful. A contract that refuses to cooperate is more helpful.
The launch came through Safe’s governance structure, with Safe Foundation and SafeDAO steering the rollout. It also introduces paid transaction checks and a fresh round of staking rewards for SAFE holders.
How Safenet Aegis works
The first group of Sentinels includes OpenCover, BlockSecTeam, Candide Labs, and IntentGuard. Each operates independently of the others.
Validators then attest to those evaluations onchain. These validators are governed by SafeDAO, the community body that oversees the protocol.
The final layer is optional. Users can enable a formally verified Safenet Guard on their Safe account, which allows the network’s findings to be enforced directly onchain.
That distinction is the core of the product. Without the Guard, Aegis acts as an advisory service. With it, security goes beyond interface warnings and into the transaction logic itself.
Safe says audits for both the Guard and the staking contracts have been completed. User funds stay non-custodial throughout, so the network reviews transactions without ever taking control of the assets.
Fees, staking, and the beta numbers
The security checks are not a free add-on. Users pay onchain fees for transaction evaluations, and that money goes to the security providers doing the review.
One example given for the fee is 40 USDC.
The production launch follows a six-month beta that concluded in early October 2026. Over that stretch, approximately 4.5 million SAFE tokens were distributed as rewards.
Throughput reached around 100,000 transactions per week during the beta, giving the team a read on how the network behaves under load.
More than 72 million SAFE tokens were staked across roughly 865 participants after the beta ended.
Those participants do not need to do anything to carry their positions forward. Existing stakes transition to the production network without migration, which spares stakers the usual unstake-and-restake routine.
SafeDAO passed SEP 56, approving approximately 7.4 million SAFE from the treasury for a 12-month period that began on October 13, 2026.
The allocation is primarily earmarked for staking rewards. In practice, the DAO is underwriting a year of incentives while the fee side of the network gets established.
Background: from beta experiment to production layer
Integration into Safe{Wallet} is planned for Q4 2026. Until that ships, users looking to use Aegis will need to take the extra step of enabling the Guard themselves.
What this means for SAFE holders and Safe users
The key tension is between subsidized rewards and earned fees. For the next 12 months, SEP 56 money does much of the heavy lifting. The real test is whether paid transaction checks generate enough activity to keep Sentinels and validators engaged once that allocation runs its course.
Pricing will shape that answer. A fee like 40 USDC may be easy to justify for a treasury moving large sums, but smaller users may weigh it differently against the risk they are trying to avoid.
The launch cohort of Sentinels is four names: OpenCover, BlockSecTeam, Candide Labs, and IntentGuard. The model is built on independent judgment, so how that group grows will matter for how credible the network’s verdicts become.
Validators answer to SafeDAO, which ties the network’s reliability to the health of that DAO’s decision-making. That means governance votes now carry operational weight, not just treasury weight.
The planned Safe{Wallet} integration in Q4 2026 could move Aegis from an opt-in tool for security-minded teams to something closer to a default experience.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.