Layer 1 blockchain
Gnosis Chain ticker GNO
Summary
Proof of stake on the Gnosis Beacon Chain, which runs Ethereum consensus-client software with Gnosis parameters: 5-second slots, 16-slot (80-second) epochs and a 1 GNO minimum stake per validator (compounding withdrawal credentials allow up to 64 GNO of effective balance since the Electra/Pectra fork). Validators propose and attest; LMD-GHOST picks the head and Casper FFG finalizes epoch checkpoints once two-thirds of stake supports them. Execution is an EVM run by Nethermind, Erigon, Reth or Gnosis builds of Geth. The December 2022 merge replaced the earlier proof-of-authority consensus with this beacon chain. 245721222536
Design
- System
- Layer 1 blockchainGnosis Chain (chain ID 100, formerly xDai Chain) is an EVM layer 1 with its own proof-of-stake beacon chain secured by staked GNO; gas is paid in xDAI. Its beacon chain was still finalizing epochs on 2026-09-27. GIP-153, approved in a GnosisDAO Snapshot vote that closed on 19 August 2026, plans to retire the validator set and relaunch the chain as a rollup settling on Ethereum, with interim proving (likely trusted hardware) before zero-knowledge proofs. Genesis is targeted for December 2026 or January 2027. Reclassify when that happens.
- Settlement family
- Ethereum / EVM
- Scarce resource
- Stake (proof of stake)
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Economic finality
- Who makes blocks
- Validators that deposited at least 1 GNO through the deposit contract; one validator proposes the block for each 5-second slot and committees attest. Gnosis's site states 145,000+ validators, but the Gnosis beacon chain explorer showed 33,613 on 27 September 2026; since April 2025 one validator can hold up to 64 GNO, so consolidation can shrink the count without stake leaving. One operator can run many validators, so neither figure is an operator count.
- Fork choice
- LMD-GHOST follows the fork with the greatest weight of stake-backed attestations, with Casper FFG finalized checkpoints beneath it. Weight comes from staked GNO, not work. For the December 2025 recovery hard fork, operators were told that nodes not following the majority-stake chain would be penalized.
Qualifications
- Finality · Applies. Casper FFG gives economic finality: reverting a finalized checkpoint would require at least one-third of stake to be slashable. Blocks before finalization can still be reorganized. A coordinated hard fork backed by governance and most stake can still change balances, as the December 2025 recovery fork did.
- Gas token · Applies. Fees are paid in xDAI, a dollar-pegged coin minted by the xDai bridge against DAI or USDS locked on Ethereum. GNO, the ticker shown here, is the staking and governance token, not the gas coin.
- Base fee destination · Applies. The base fee is not burned. Nethermind's Gnosis chain configuration sends it to a fee-collector address from block 19,040,000, where the fee market change activated, and also sends blob fees there since April 2025; the 1 February 2023 core devs notes say the same, and the address is a Safe multisig contract. In eight blocks sampled on 27 September 2026 the collector's balance rose by exactly the base fee times gas used. Gnosis's 2021 fee-market page still says base fees are burned, which is out of date.
- Planned rollup transition · Partial. GIP-153 plans to retire the validator set, unlock staked GNO and relaunch as a rollup settling on Ethereum, first with an interim proving setup (likely trusted hardware) and later zero-knowledge proofs. Gnosis Ltd would run the only sequencer at launch, with no forced-inclusion path as a launch feature, and settlement on Ethereum would replace the xDai bridge's validator committee. Not live on 2026-09-27; this profile describes the current L1.
- Validator count · Contested. Gnosis's site states 145,000+ validators, while the Gnosis beacon chain explorer reported 33,613 validators on 27 September 2026. GIP-153 cites about 350k GNO staked. Consolidation up to 64 GNO per validator means validator counts do not equal operators, and operators were not counted.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Decentralization and Security
- Gives up
- Base-layer throughput and economic weight. Capacity is capped by a fixed gas budget per 5-second block, and low fees reflect a cheap stable gas coin rather than a high-capacity design. Economic security rests on the GNO stake, which GIP-153 puts at about 350k GNO, and GIP-153 says validator rewards are funded by roughly 2.3% yearly dilution of non-stakers.Decentralization here means low validator entry (1 GNO) and hardware the docs describe as home-runnable. The security reading is contestable: in November-December 2025 most validators ran a soft fork that censored one attacker address, then a hard fork moved the frozen funds, and GIP-153 itself argues for moving settlement security to Ethereum.
- Full node at home
- Practical at home 56Gnosis docs list a CPU with at least 4 threads, at least 16 GB RAM and an NVMe (preferred) or SATA SSD, name disk space as the main bottleneck, and estimate about 700 MB per hour of upload bandwidth for a node with an average number of peers. The node FAQ cites Dappnode and Intel NUC-class home setups and checkpoint sync. Current disk size was not stated.
- Throughput claims
- No classified figure recorded
Scaling layers
No scaling layer recorded in this profile.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Unknown | A trust-minimized cross-party swap mechanism on Gnosis Chain was not reviewed; EVM contracts could implement hash-locked swaps but none was verified. |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
| Light clients | Built into the protocolLimited scope | Sync committees: consensus produces what a light client checks, since the Gnosis beacon chain includes the Altair upgrade that introduced sync committees, and Gnosis's Nimbus guide enables serving light-client data. Limited: no production light client for Gnosis Chain was reviewed. 38 |
| Native staking or delegation | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| On-chain governance | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Parallel execution | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Payment or state channels | Unknown | No payment or state channel network settling to Gnosis Chain was reviewed. |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Gnosis Chain runs the EVM, so spend conditions are smart contracts and smart accounts such as Safe. 1526 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Independent softwareLimited scope | Zodiac Delay modifier, published by Gnosis Guild: a Safe smart account enforces a cooldown before queued transactions run, and the owner can skip them before they execute, which is a delayed send the sender can cancel (part (a)). It is live on Gnosis Chain: Gnosis Pay card safes use the Delay and Roles modules, and a signature flaw in them was exploited in June 2026. Limited: no recovery path for part (b) and no first-party implementation are cited. The December 2025 recovery hard fork was a one-off governance intervention, not a user-set schedule. 252637 |
| Rollups | Unknown | No rollup settling to Gnosis Chain was reviewed. The planned change under GIP-153 would make Gnosis Chain itself a rollup on Ethereum; that is not a rollup on Gnosis. 23 |
| Shielded transfers | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Signed partial offers | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
Reading these values
- How this feature is provided
- Built into the protocol, core-team software or independent software says where a feature lives and who can change it. These are implementation layers, not quality: core-team software is not closer to the protocol than independent software.
- Structured assessment pending
- The shared review has not assessed this feature for any chain yet (Account abstraction, Native staking or delegation, On-chain governance, Parallel execution, Protocol-verified messaging and Shielded transfers). That does not mean it is absent, and a chain’s profile may already describe it.
- Unknown
- The review has not established this for this chain under the current definition; the note beside it says why. Unknown is not absent and not a low score. A feature reads “Not present” only when a source shows it is absent.
- Earlier definition
- Payment or state channels, Programmable spending and Rollups keep the earlier definition until the next fact-check. There, “Native” does not separate the protocol from core-team software, “Ecosystem software” does not say who publishes it, and “Partial” does not say which layer.
- Reading across rows
- The list of capabilities is incomplete. Do not read these rows as a chain leading or lagging overall.
Ecosystem & custody
| Product type | Status | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Automated market makers | Established in the ecosystemBalancer | Balancer's deployments repository lists Gnosis among its networks. Liquidity depth was not measured and other venues were not reviewed. A November 2025 Balancer exploit left funds frozen on Gnosis Chain that a later recovery hard fork moved. 2527 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | Native to the protocolxDAI (bridge-minted gas coin), EURe (Monerium) | xDAI is the chain's gas coin, minted by the xDai bridge when USDS or DAI is locked on Ethereum; it is not issued by Sky on Gnosis. Monerium, a licensed e-money institution, issues EURe directly on Gnosis. Circle does not list native USDC on Gnosis. 911282930 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | Algorithmic or hybrid stablecoins on Gnosis Chain were not reviewed. xDAI is backed by collateral locked in the bridge, not an algorithmic design. |
| Bridges | Native to the protocolxDai bridge (Ethereum), Omnibridge on the Arbitrary Message Bridge (Ethereum) | The Gnosis Bridge app covers the xDai bridge (USDS or DAI to xDAI) and the Omnibridge for ERC-20 tokens, both between Ethereum and Gnosis Chain. The AMB docs say transfers take about 30 minutes to be signed because of Ethereum finality. Circle's CCTP does not list Gnosis. Third-party bridges were not reviewed. Risk: Both bridges rely on a 4-of-7 validator multisig; an 8-of-15 governance multisig controls the xDai bridge's validator set, limits and fees. The Hashi and Telepathy extra verification layers are deprecated, so there is no independent proof check. xDAI's peg depends on the bridge collateral. 1011121331 |
| Block explorers | Established in the ecosystemBlockscout (served at gnosisscan.io), Gnosis beacon chain explorer | Gnosis docs list Blockscout, Gnosisscan, a beacon chain explorer, DexGuru and 3xpl. On 27 September 2026 the Blockscout address redirected to gnosisscan.io, which is Blockscout-branded, and the beacon chain explorer was live; the listed DexGuru explorer address returned not found and 3xpl could not be loaded, so neither is counted. A July 2026 report said Etherscan would retire its Gnosisscan explorer on 11 August 2026. Explorer data is provider-indexed, not consensus. 14153236 |
| Hardware wallets | ThinTrezor (through MetaMask or Rabby), Ledger (through MetaMask) | See custody rows: both vendors' devices reach Gnosis Chain only through third-party wallets. Trezor's GNO page lists Gnosis Chain beside MetaMask and Rabby, and Trezor Suite has no Gnosis Chain network; Ledger has no Gnosis page and Gnosis docs route Ledger through MetaMask and the Ethereum app. Vendor-wallet support for the xDAI gas coin was not confirmed. 182038 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | Through an intermediaryMetaMask, using the Ledger Ethereum appSame as native: No | Can: Sign Gnosis Chain transactions from MetaMask with a Ledger device running the Ethereum app, per Gnosis docs Cannot: Install a dedicated Gnosis app on the device (Gnosis docs say none exists) Cannot: Sign contract interactions such as bridge claims or swaps without enabling blind signingLedger vendor pages tried for Gnosis and xDai returned 404; no Ledger-side listing of Gnosis Chain was found. 18 |
| Trezor | Through an intermediaryMetaMask or RabbySame as native: Unknown | Can: Use a Trezor Safe 3, Safe 5 or Safe 7 on Gnosis Chain through MetaMask or Rabby, the third-party apps Trezor's GNO page lists; Gnosis docs also describe a MetaMask path Can: Hold the GNO token on Ethereum or Arbitrum One in Trezor Suite Cannot: Manage Gnosis Chain accounts or xDAI gas in Trezor Suite: current Suite code has no Gnosis Chain networkTrezor's GNO page lists Gnosis Chain among GNO's networks and names Trezor Suite, MetaMask and Rabby without saying which app covers which network. Suite code has no Gnosis Chain network, so under the custody evidence rule the device reaches Gnosis Chain through the third-party apps. 192038 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Gnosis Chain yet. This is a limit of the service, not a statement about the network.
| Lookup | Status | What it covers and its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Address or account | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Tokens and assets | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| NFTs | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Transactions | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
Sourced developments
Developments: Review overdue Reviewed Sep 27, 2026; next review was due Oct 7, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
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Nethermind 2.0.0, a new major version of a Gnosis Chain execution client, was released
Nethermind, one of the four execution clients Gnosis docs list for running a Gnosis Chain node, published version 2.0.0 on GitHub on 22 September 2026. It adds a new flat database layout that can keep archive history, and it changes several configuration settings and JSON-RPC responses. The notes say most full nodes upgrade in place without a resync, but some old settings now stop the node from starting until they are changed. They measure a full Gnosis archive node on the new layout at about 0.94 TB and suggest provisioning 1.5 TB. This is client software, not a Gnosis Chain hard fork: the notes do not call it mandatory for any network and tie it to no Gnosis fork.
- Implementation:shipped in the Nethermind 2.0.0 client, after release candidate 2.0.0-rc2 on 2026-09-14
- Release:released on GitHub on 2026-09-22 as a full release (not a pre-release)
- Activation:no network activation: no Gnosis Chain fork is tied to this release, and each node changes only when its operator installs it
Sources: Nethermind (GitHub) — v2.0.0 (external site) · Nethermind (GitHub) — Releases - NethermindEth/nethermind (external site) · Gnosis Chain docs — Run a Node (external site) · Gnosis Chain Validator Newsletter (GC Comms Team) — Gnosis Chain - Fusaka Hard Fork Announcement (external site)
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GIP-153 proposed turning Gnosis Chain into a rollup on Ethereum
GIP-153 proposed retiring the Gnosis Chain validator set and relaunching the chain as a rollup settling on Ethereum, first with interim proving likely based on trusted hardware and later with zero-knowledge proofs, while keeping xDAI as gas and users' addresses, balances and contract state. The GnosisDAO Snapshot vote closed on 19 August 2026 in favour (about 123,158 GNO for, 115 against); genesis is targeted for December 2026 or January 2027.
- Proposal:approved in a GnosisDAO Snapshot vote that closed on 2026-08-19
- Implementation:not confirmed in a primary source; the plan depends on Ethereum Economic Zone technology
- Release:not released
- Activation:not active; targeted December 2026 or January 2027
Sources: GnosisDAO forum — GIP-153: Should Gnosis Chain transition into the Ethereum Economic Zone? (external site) · GnosisDAO on Snapshot — GIP-153: Should Gnosis Chain transition into the Ethereum Economic Zone? (Snapshot vote) (external site) · Cointelegraph — GnosisDAO Approves Gnosis Chain for Ethereum Economic Zone (external site)
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Gnosis Pay published a post-mortem of the June 2026 card safe exploit
Gnosis Pay reported that on 1 June 2026 attackers abused a signature-validation flaw in the Zodiac Delay and Roles modules used by its card safes, taking about 1.5 million dollars and leaving about 300 thousand dollars inaccessible across 5,281 wallets. Gnosis absorbed the losses and restored user funds. The flaw sat in module code, not in Gnosis Chain consensus.
- Implementation:fix and additional security reviews described by the operator
- Release:post-mortem published
- Activation:services restored in phases between 3 and 7 June 2026 per the post-mortem
Source: Gnosis Pay — Post-Mortem: Gnosis Pay Vulnerability Exploit (external site)
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Fusaka hard fork scheduled for Gnosis Chain on 14 April 2026
The Gnosis Chain validator newsletter announced activation of the Fusaka upgrade at epoch 1714688 on 14 April 2026, headlined by PeerDAS, which lets nodes sample blob data instead of downloading all of it. The fork followed Ethereum's December 2025 activation and was delayed by the Balancer emergency fork.
- Implementation:client releases listed in the announcement
- Release:Released
- Activation:activated 2026-04-14; the mainnet config and Nethermind's chain configuration carry the same fork point, and the chain has kept finalizing since
Sources: Gnosis Chain Validator Newsletter (GC Comms Team) — Gnosis Chain - Fusaka Hard Fork Announcement (external site) · Gnosis Chain (GitHub) — gnosischain/configs mainnet config.yaml (external site) · Nethermind (GitHub) — Gnosis chain specification (gnosis.json) (external site) · Gnosis Chain (beaconchain.gnosischain.com) — Gnosis beacon chain explorer: latest finalized epoch (external site)
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Gnosis Chain scheduled a hard fork to move funds frozen after the Balancer exploit
After most validators ran a soft fork in November 2025 that blocked an attacker's address following the Balancer exploit, a Gnosis contributor announced on the GnosisDAO forum a hard fork for 22 December 2025 at 16:11:40 UTC to move the frozen funds to a recovery Safe multisig, with required client versions for all eight clients.
- Proposal:announced on the GnosisDAO forum after the November soft fork
- Implementation:client releases listed in the announcement
- Release:Released
- Activation:activated in December 2025 per the April 2026 Fusaka announcement
Sources: GnosisDAO forum — Balancer Hack Hard Fork (external site) · Gnosis Chain Validator Newsletter (GC Comms Team) — Gnosis Chain - Fusaka Hard Fork Announcement (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Gnosis Chain through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- Gnosis Chain is scheduled to stop being an independent L1 if GIP-153 is carried out (target December 2026 or January 2027); this profile must be reclassified and rewritten at that point.
- GIP-153 made genesis conditional on wider Ethereum Economic Zone dependencies landing by summer 2026; whether they did, and the final proving design, were not confirmed.
- Who signs for the fee-collector multisig and how its xDAI is spent were not reviewed; Gnosis's own fee-market page still says base fees are burned.
- Time to finality under normal conditions was not found in a Gnosis source; only slot and epoch lengths are cited.
- Operator concentration and client diversity were not measured. The validator count comes from Gnosis's beacon chain explorer on one day and differs sharply from the 145,000+ on Gnosis's site.
- Current chain size and archive storage needs were not stated in the node docs.
- No rollup, channel or sidechain settling to Gnosis Chain was reviewed, so scaling layers are empty.
- Atomic-swap mechanisms, algorithmic stablecoins, third-party bridges and AMM venues other than Balancer were not reviewed.
- Trezor Suite has no Gnosis Chain network in current code; whether Suite shows xDAI or Gnosis Chain tokens in any form was not tested. Ledger has no vendor page for Gnosis.
- Etherscan's retirement of its Gnosisscan explorer on 11 August 2026 comes from a secondary report; the explorers docs page still lists Gnosisscan separately, and its DexGuru link returned not found.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 27, 2026 Next check due Oct 27, 2026.
- Gnosis Specifications (external site)
- Contracts, Addresses, Parameters (Gnosis Beacon Chain) (external site)
- gnosischain/configs mainnet config.yaml (external site)
- The Merge (external site)
- Run a Node (external site)
- Running Nodes (FAQ) (external site)
- Validator Withdrawals (external site)
- Run Beacon Node + Validator: Nimbus (external site)
- xDai Token (external site)
- Bridges (external site)
- xDai Bridge (external site)
- Arbitrary Message Bridge (external site)
- Bridges Roadmap (external site)
- Explorers (external site)
- Gnosis chain blockchain explorer (external site)
- EIP-1559 hard fork (external site)
- Core Devs Call - 2023/02/01 (external site)
- Ledger (external site)
- Trezor (external site)
- Safe & secure Gnosis wallet (external site)
- Gnosis Chain (external site)
- Gasper (external site)
- GIP-153: Should Gnosis Chain transition into the Ethereum Economic Zone? (external site)
- GnosisDAO Approves Gnosis Chain for Ethereum Economic Zone (external site)
- Balancer Hack Hard Fork (external site)
- Post-Mortem: Gnosis Pay Vulnerability Exploit (external site)
- balancer-deployments README (external site)
- EURe (external site)
- Tokens (external site)
- USDC Contract Addresses (external site)
- CCTP supported blockchains (external site)
- Etherscan shifts Gnosis Chain access to Pro API tier only (external site)
- GIP-153: Should Gnosis Chain transition into the Ethereum Economic Zone? (Snapshot vote, closed 2026-08-19) (external site)
- Gnosis chain specification (gnosis.json) (external site)
- Address 0x6BBe78ee9e474842Dbd4AB4987b3CeFE88426A92 (fee collector) (external site)
- Gnosis beacon chain explorer: latest finalized epoch (external site)
- Zodiac Delay Modifier README (external site)
- Trezor Suite network configuration (trezor-suite, develop branch) (external site)
Report an error
Found something wrong or out of date? Reporting is free, and every chain goes through the same process. Published corrections appear in the public log.
Funding disclosure
Funding disclosures appear here when an upkeep arrangement exists, in the form “Upkeep funded by [name]; verdicts unaffected.” The funder ledger has not been published yet. Neutrality & funding