Samuel Akpan & Safe
The Safe Foundation and Velvet Capital have entered into a five-year token swap, aligning Safe’s smart account infrastructure with Velvet’s self-custodial DeFi trading and portfolio management platform as part of Safe Foundation’s 5M SAFE Ecosystem Alignment Program.
Velvet brings DeFi trading & portfolio infrastructure into the program, enabling users, traders, communities, and asset managers to trade, manage portfolios, launch vaults, and access strategies directly from their own wallets through its native app, agentic Telegram bot, APIs, and tokenized vault infrastructure.
Expanding Safe’s Ecosystem Alignment Program into DeFi portfolio infrastructure
Safe Foundation’s 5M SAFE Ecosystem Alignment Program supports teams building critical infrastructure for usable self-custody at scale.
The program operates through standardized, non-exclusive agreements designed to foster open collaboration rather than closed ecosystems. As self-custody infrastructure matures from experimental to essential, Safe Foundation is positioning itself alongside teams turning that shift into real products, real usage, and long-term ecosystem growth.
With Velvet, that alignment now extends into DeFi portfolio infrastructure: trading, vault creation, portfolio management, and strategy execution.
A collective commitment to usable self-custody at scale
Safe and Velvet share a practical view of DeFi’s next phase: users should be able to trade, manage portfolios, launch vaults, and access onchain strategies while retaining control of their assets.
Velvet is building toward that through a self-custodial trading and portfolio management platform that brings together an onchain trading terminal, AI-assisted execution, portfolio management, vault infrastructure, and APIs for developers and asset managers. Today, Velvet supports more than 100,000 users across Base, Solana, BNB Chain, Sonic, and Ethereum, with over $200 million in trading volume. All of those users receive a Safe-based account by default.
The connection to Safe is therefore visible at the infrastructure level. Velvet uses the Safe smart accounts for enabling managers to configure portfolios with parameters such as management fees, performance fees, token whitelists, transferability, deposits, withdrawals, and batched transactions. Velvet also uses Safe as part of its vault-creation infrastructure to deploy vaults and Safe Modules to add custom features to Safe contracts.
This makes the alignment concrete. Safe provides the smart account foundation for secure ownership, programmable execution, and multisig control. Velvet applies that infrastructure to self-custodial DeFi workflows for traders, asset managers, DAOs, hedge funds, family offices, and other institutional users.
The agreement follows Safe Foundation’s previous economic alignments with World Foundation and JOIN, continuing the 5M SAFE Ecosystem Alignment Program’s focus on teams building the next layer of usable self-custody.
About Velvet
Velvet is an AI-powered, self-custodial onchain trading terminal and portfolio management platform built for traders, communities, asset managers, DAOs, hedge funds, family offices, and institutions.
Through a single vertically integrated system, Velvet enables users to discover opportunities, trade spot and perps, access yield, manage portfolios, launch tokenized vaults, and deploy onchain strategies directly from their own wallets. The platform brings together an onchain trading terminal, AI-assisted execution, agentic Telegram bot, portfolio management infrastructure, vault creation tools, and APIs for developers and asset managers.
Velvet supports more than 100,000 users across Base, Solana, BNB Chain, Sonic, Ethereum, Hyperliquid, and other networks, with over $200 million in trading volume. As part of its self-custodial infrastructure, Velvet uses Safe smart accounts to help power secure ownership, programmable execution, vault configuration, batched transactions, and multisig-controlled DeFi workflows at scale.
About Safe
Safe (previously Gnosis Safe) is an onchain asset custody protocol that has processed over $1.4T+ in total value (TVP). Released as an open-source software stack by the Safe Ecosystem Foundation, it is establishing a universal smart account standard for secure custody of digital assets, data, and identity. Safe is built for the mission to unlock digital ownership for everyone in web3, including DAOs, enterprises, retail, and institutional users.
About the Safe Ecosystem Foundation, Zug, Switzerland
The mission of the Safe Ecosystem Foundation is to support the development of Safe, to strengthen Safe technology and to promote the Safe Ecosystem. The Safe Ecosystem Foundation is a non-profit organisation based in Zug, Switzerland, that helps educate people about Safe smart accounts and promotes Safe technology through the provision of grants and other forms of funding.
Legal Disclaimer
This is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any SAFE tokens and is not an offering, advertisement, solicitation, confirmation, statement, or any financial promotion that can be construed as an invitation or inducement to engage in any investment activity or similar.
The Safe Ecosystem Foundation makes no representations, warranties and/or covenants with respect to the Safe Technology (or any implementations of the Safe{Wallet} and/or Safe Smart Accounts) or any program (Grants, Hackathons and/or any other forms of funding) run by the Safe Ecosystem Foundation. You should not rely on the content herein for advice of any kind, including legal, investment, financial, tax, or other professional advice, and such content is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional.
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