SAFU is an initiative by the Binance company to take some portion of transaction fees and accumulate them as emergency insurance fund.
The acronym ‘SAFU’ means Secure Asset Fund for Users.
This fund is mostly used to compensate investors when the need arises (i.e. if the platform ever gets hacked), or lose money due to technical exploits.
The origin of SAFU
According to Binance glossary, during unscheduled maintenance, Binance CEO tweeted to Twitter crypto users stating:
Funds are safe
Changpeng Zhou (CZ)
After this, the phrase ‘Funds are safe’ became regularly used by CZ to ensure users were aware that their funds were totally safe.
In 2018, a content creator named Bizonacci uploaded a video on YouTube titled ‘Funds Are SAFU’.
It quickly spread and became a viral meme, and since then, the entire crypto community began using the phrase.
Some people consider it ‘Safu’ to be a typo for the word ‘Safe’, but it doesn’t look like that from Urban Dictionary meaning.
Usage of Secure Asset Fund
The Secure Asset Fund was established by the Binance exchange in July 2018 to protect users’ funds.
The Secure Asset Fund for Users was valued at US$1 billion based on the opening price on January 29, 2022.
The value of this fund (which comprises of BNB, BUSD, and BTC) may fluctuate based on market momentum.
Closing thoughts
Binance is regarded as a safe exchange that provides account protection for users with security features like the use of Two Factor Authentication (2FA).
After the last major security breach in 2019, Binance has been relatively safe and secure for different crypto transactions.
Additionally, they try to cover the losses of assets for their users out of their own pockets, which gives a higher level of integrity for the platform.
According to Binance, one of their goals is to never use SAFU, they hope to achieve this by providing the most secure crypto platforms possible.
