What Is Gnosis? Inside the Ethereum Layer-2 Blockchain Infrastructure Developer

Gnosis is a decentralized platform constructed on Ethereum, primarily centered on prediction markets, decentralized finance, and safe digital asset administration by its multi-signature pockets, Gnosis Protected.

Launched by Martin Köppelmann, Friederike Ernst, and Stefan George in 2015 as a prediction market platform on the Ethereum blockchain, Gnosis has since expanded right into a broader blockchain infrastructure ecosystem.

Gnosis has grow to be a serious participant within the blockchain business, with 300,000+ validators, it is likely one of the largest tasks to return out of the Ethereum community. The native token of the ecosystem, Gnosis GNO, peaked at $644 in November 2021. By April 2024, Gnosis surpassed 200 million transactions.

“Surpassing 200 million transactions underscores the rising adoption and sensible software of Gnosis Chain, affirming our path in the direction of realizing Gnosis 3.0 which goals to bridge the hole between blockchain know-how and sensible, on a regular basis functions for the lots,” Gnosis co-founder Martin Koppelman stated in a press release on the time.

The Gnosis ecosystem contains:

Gnosis Chain – a sidechain used for verification.
Cow Swap – a decentralized change.
The Coincidence of Needs (CoWs) Protocol – which matches customers whose trades on Cow Swap complement one another.
Gnosis Pay – a crypto bank card.
Protected – a crypto pockets.

Gnosis was additionally among the many first tasks supported by the Ethereum-focused incubator ConsenSys (which incubated Decrypt previous to its spin off in 2022). This text examines Gnosis’s growth, core applied sciences, and position within the Ethereum ecosystem.

What’s Gnosis?

Gnosis is a layer-2 answer for the Ethereum blockchain designed to handle scalability challenges inside the Ethereum ecosystem.

As an Ethereum sidechain, Gnosis was designed to supply sooner and extra inexpensive transactions. Moreover, Gnosis developed to include varied options, together with a prediction market and multi-signature wallets that require a number of personal keys to authorize a transaction.

Prediction markets let customers commerce shares primarily based on the result of future occasions, equivalent to elections, sports activities outcomes, or market developments. In blockchain variations of prediction markets, oracles assist by pulling real-world knowledge onto the blockchain, guaranteeing correct outcomes and resolving disputes.

Prediction markets are thought of a serious use case for blockchain, and as a pioneer, Gnosis confronted stiff competitors within the early days.

“On the time, prediction markets had been a serious matter in blockchain. Our major competitor, Augur, held the primary ICO, elevating about 5% of the Ether provide and changing into a key Ethereum software,” Gnosis co-founder Stefan George instructed Decrypt. “We noticed a chance to compete and construct one thing higher.”

Gnosis’ flagship dapp, Gnosis Olympia, launched in December 2017 as a take a look at model of Gnosis’s prediction market. It allowed customers to discover decentralized betting with out monetary threat. Contributors acquired free Olympia (OLY) tokens to position bets, and profitable predictions earned Gnosis (GNO) tokens. Whereas Olympia provided a enjoyable approach to expertise prediction markets, Gnosis has since taken it offline.

Trying again, one of many largest challenges Gnosis confronted, George stated, was timing.

“It was too early and prediction markets struggled with adoption, not only for Gnosis but additionally for Augur and others who tried them again within the day,” he stated. “In the meantime, the infrastructure we constructed to assist prediction markets, like exchanges and wallets, took off and have become the primary focus.”

Over time, Gnosis developed past prediction markets right into a complete decentralized ecosystem designed to facilitate safe, clear, and environment friendly decentralized functions and important monetary infrastructure on Ethereum.

Historical past of Gnosis

January 2015: Gnosis is based as a decentralized prediction market on Ethereum.
April 2017: Gnosis raises $12.5 million in a 10-minute ICO.
December 2017: Gnosis launches Olympia, a take a look at model of its prediction market app.
April 2020: Gnosis Protocol launches, introducing a brand new decentralized change mechanism.
November 2021: Gnosis Chain launches following the xDai and GnosisDAO merger.
April 2021: Gnosis Protocol v2 launches, introducing CoWSwap.
December 2021: Gnosis Beacon Chain launches as an Ethereum Digital Machine protocol.
July 2022: Gnosis Protected rebrands to Protected following a neighborhood vote by the GnosisDAO.
September 2022: Protected (previously Gnosis Protected) launches SafeDAO and the Protected Token.
July 2023: Gnosis launches Gnosis Card, a self-custodial Visa Debit card.
Could 2024: Gnosis launches Metri, an on-chain self-custodial pockets.
February 2025: A laptop computer belonging to a Protected developer is compromised, resulting in the $1.4 billion hack of Dubai-based change Bybit.

The Gnosis ecosystem

Gnosis Chain

Gnosis Chain launched in 2021 as an Ethereum sidechain designed for decentralization, effectivity, and low-cost transactions. It operates as an Ethereum Digital Machine execution-layer chain, secured by the Gnosis Beacon Chain consensus layer.

The Gnosis Beacon Chain makes use of a Proof-of-Stake mechanism, the place validators stake GNO tokens to safe the community and earn rewards. Ruled by GnosisDAO, a decentralized autonomous group, it prioritizes community-driven decision-making. The Gnosis Chain ecosystem contains tasks like POAP, and Giveth.

“Gnosis Chain serves as a form of substrate—a sister chain to Ethereum,” George defined. “It runs the identical know-how, consensus, and execution purchasers, and like Ethereum, it is rather decentralized, with a whole bunch of 1000’s of validators.”

Coincidence of Needs Protocol

Launched by Gnosis in April 2021, the Coincidence of Needs (CoWs) protocol improved crypto buying and selling by immediately matching customers, lowering prices, and stopping slippage and front-running. It used batch auctions and solvers to optimize execution and powered the CoW Swap DEX.

CoW Swap

CoW Swap is a decentralized change aggregator that finds one of the best buying and selling costs by matching customers immediately by its Coincidences of Needs mechanism. This peer-to-peer matching reduces reliance on exterior liquidity, enhances value effectivity, and protects in opposition to Maximal Extractable Worth (MEV) exploitation that seeks to revenue from blockchain transaction manipulation.

The Gnosis Pay Card

​The Gnosis Pay Card is a Visa-enabled debit card that connects on to a self-custodial crypto pockets. The Gnosis Card permits customers to spend their cryptocurrency belongings at any service provider that accepts Visa funds. In contrast to conventional crypto playing cards that require preloading funds onto the cardboard, the Gnosis Card allows funds to be made immediately from the person’s pockets on the time of the transaction.

GnosisDAO

GnosisDAO is a decentralized autonomous group (DAO) that governs the Gnosis ecosystem. Launched in November 2020, it transitioned Gnosis from a conventional firm to a community-driven governance mannequin.

GnosisDAO operates underneath a futarchy governance system, the place selections are guided by prediction markets moderately than direct voting. On this mannequin, contributors wager on the outcomes of various proposals, and essentially the most promising ones—primarily based on market consensus—are carried out.

George acknowledged the challenges of futarchy adoption, highlighting the complexities of utilizing prediction markets for voting and efforts to make participation extra accessible.

“The fact is that it has been troublesome for folks to make these bets—they don’t essentially really feel snug making predictions as a result of it’s too advanced,” he stated. “Moreover, we haven’t had an important person expertise for participation.”

Regardless of these challenges, George stated Gnosis is working to resolve the problems with futarchy-based voting, and is supporting a brand new startup, futarchy.fi, which is “growing interfaces that ought to lastly make it simpler for folks to take part.”

Protected

Protected, previously Gnosis Protected, is an open-source, non-custodial good contract pockets for managing digital belongings on Ethereum and different EVM-compatible blockchains. It presents multi-signature safety and good accounts and helps Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Avalanche. 

The Bybit hack

In February 2025, Dubai-based change Bybit suffered a major safety breach, ensuing within the theft of roughly $1.4 billion in Ethereum and associated belongings. The assault was attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, which compromised the laptop computer of a Protected developer, enabling hackers to entry Bybit’s Ethereum chilly pockets.

Whereas George emphasised that Protected is “utterly separate from Gnosis,” he defined that “due to current occasions, we determined to be nearer to get by the disaster.”

Following the assault, George stated Gnosis assumed the worst-case state of affairs and instantly took motion to safe their programs and shield person knowledge.

“With out figuring out if the infrastructure was compromised, we took the whole lot down, recognized and remoted the problem, eliminated it, and improved monitoring,” he stated. “We reset the infrastructure, strengthened inner and exterior menace monitoring, and restored networks so everybody may entry their safes.”

To mitigate the probabilities of a repeat hack, George stated future software program designs will enable customers to work together with their Protected wallets with out counting on a service supplier.

Gnosis 3.0 and past

As of 2025, Gnosis’ infrastructure powers over 200 tasks, making it a key participant within the blockchain business—and one that’s persevering with to construct instruments to assist the fast-changing blockchain house, George instructed Decrypt.

Gnosis Chain’s blockchain infrastructure is “extremely decentralized, developer-friendly, and cheaper to make use of than Ethereum,” he stated, calling it a “nice house” on which to construct functions.

Future plans embrace Gnosis 3.0, a “pivotal shift from infrastructure to software,” that may see Gnosis concentrate on consolidating a “collective of aligned tasks” linked by its GNO token, emphasizing consumer-facing functions that deal with real-world use circumstances.