When a user signs up for Gnosis Pay, a new Gnosis Pay Safe (which is a smart-contract wallet) is created for them. This Safe can only be controlled by the user through an EOA wallet. Therefore, the funds in your Gnosis Pay Safe will not be held by any third party, and you will have sole control over the ownership of your funds.
Watch an explainer video here. To dive deeper, continue reading!
What is a smart contract wallet?
A smart contract wallet is a type of digital wallet that uses smart contracts on a blockchain to manage and automate transactions, providing enhanced security and functionality beyond simple fund storage and transfer. They are typically owned by an EOA (Externally Owned Account)Wallet.
Safe is the pioneer of smart contract wallets custodying over $70+ billion in assets.
There are two modules that are configured on this Gnosis Pay Safe during the activation of the card - the roles module and the delay module.
What are modules?
You can think of modules as small pieces of logic that help us ensure the product functions securely. These modules are controlled by the user.
These modules allow Gnosis Pay to function as set by the user. This ensures that the user self-custodies their funds in the manner they prefer.
These modules are open source software developed as part of the zodiac standard of DAO tooling built by Gnosis Guild.
Without this configuration, we would be unable to serve the user. Let's dive deeper.
Roles Module
The roles module has 4 configurations:
Token Used - this specifies which token Gnosis Pay will be able to spend.
Daily Limit - this specifies the daily limit of funds that Gnosis Pay can spend on the user's behalf
Recipient address - this specifies where the funds can be transferred to. In our case - it is another Safe that is owned by the card issuer. This money is then used to settle the funds owed to merchants through Visa.
Role delegated to whom - this specifies to whom is this role delegated to. In this case, it is Gnosis Pay.
It is important to note that this module is owned by the user and is only modifiable by the user. The user has complete control on changing the daily spending limit in a permission-less way whenever they desire. The setup of this module allows Gnosis Pay to process transactions.
Delay Module
The delay module ensures that all non-card transactions (for e.g, sending funds to another address, adding funds) go through a 3 minute delay.
The reason for this delay is to avoid double spending conditions and ensure availability of funds authorised and spent by the card.
It is important to note that the card will be paused during the 3 minute time delay, if there are any non-card transactions in the delay queue.
The delay module also ensures that it is solely the user which has sole control over the Safe itself. During the activation process the user's EOA is made an indirect owner of the Safe by putting the delay module in between the Safe and the EOA.
To conclude, we advise the user not to the change the configuration of the Safe to ensure that Gnosis Pay can serve you.
For our technically curious users
To dive deeper into the Safe setup, you can check the Zodiac application in the Safe Webapp for your particular Safe by following these steps:
Go to Gnosis Pay Dashboard
Click on "View all transactions here"
This will take you to the Safe webapp
Click on applications in the sidebar
Search for 'Zodiac' application
Roles Module and Delay Module are open source smart contracts governed by LGPL 3.0 license.