Gnosis (GNO): What It Is, Uses, Supply and Risks

Gnosis is a long-running Ethereum-ecosystem project. GNO is its token. The project started in 2015 and was first known for decentralised prediction markets, where people trade on the outcomes of real-world events. Since then it has widened into a group of products covering asset management, decentralised trading and payments.

The project description names three of those products. Safe is a smart-contract wallet system that the project says secures more than $58 billion in assets. CoW Protocol is a trading protocol that the project says has protected more than $130 billion in trades and is known for MEV protection. Gnosis Pay offers crypto-linked payment cards, and the project says it has handled over $100 million in payments. These are the project's own figures, not independently checked here.

Gnosis also runs its own network, Gnosis Chain, which is an EVM-compatible chain that began life as the xDai chain. GNO is the token that ties into that network's staking and into community governance. In short, GNO is the project's governance and security token, not a stablecoin or a general-purpose payment currency.

Public sources agree on two main roles for GNO: governance and staking.

Governance: GNO holders take part in GnosisDAO, which makes decisions about development, support and the direction of the ecosystem. The DAO describes itself as using its own products to guide those decisions in the open.

Staking: GNO is used to take part in the proof-of-stake network that secures Gnosis Chain. Validators put up GNO as a stake. One public staking guide says the minimum stake is 1 GNO and describes a micropool that gathers smaller deposits so holders with less than 1 GNO can still take part. The details of any pool, including its fees and risks, depend on the operator, so read them first.

Older descriptions of the project mention a model in which GNO was staked to generate a second token, OWL, which was used to pay fees. That reflects the earlier prediction-market era and may not match how the token is used today.

GNO is not the gas token for everyday transactions on Gnosis Chain. Fees there are paid in a dollar-pegged asset, xDAI. This is why the data lists xDai as the chain's native token.

The token facts list a maximum supply of 3,000,000 GNO. The total supply is the same figure, so the cap is already fully issued. As of 2026-11-05, about 2,639,589 GNO were counted as circulating, roughly 88% of the total.

That is a small supply by crypto standards. It helps explain why a single GNO trades at triple-digit dollar prices even though the market capitalisation is modest. At the time of writing, the price was about $113, the market capitalisation about $298.7 million and the fully diluted valuation about $339.5 million. The token ranked around 137 by market cap.

The data does not give a detailed breakdown of how the supply was first allocated or on what vesting schedule, so this page does not guess at one. The token launched on 2017-04-18, and earlier fundraising and distribution details are best checked in the project's own documentation.

A fixed cap means the token has no inflationary emissions at the supply level. It does not guarantee anything about demand, price or the rewards validators earn, and this page makes no price predictions.

GNO is issued on three networks according to the data: Ethereum, Arbitrum and Gnosis Chain, listed under its old name xDai. The Ethereum version is the original ERC-20 token. The others are versions of the token on those networks, usually moved across with a bridge.

Because the same ticker exists on several chains, the network matters. Sending GNO to an address on the wrong network can mean the funds are hard or impossible to recover. Before any transfer, confirm which network your wallet and the receiving platform are using.

In general terms, GNO is held in a self-custody wallet that supports EVM networks, or on a centralised exchange. It is traded on both centralised exchanges and decentralised exchanges. Trading volume is fairly thin. The data shows about $2.1 million traded over 24 hours as of 2026-11-05, which is low compared with the roughly $299 million market cap. Thin markets can mean wider spreads and larger price moves on bigger orders.

The categories attached to the token include Layer 1, DeFi, DEX and exchange-based tokens. They reflect how data providers classify it, not four separate uses.

Gnosis has one of the longer track records in the Ethereum ecosystem. It launched GNO on 2017-04-18, during the ICO era, when the project was focused on prediction markets. Its two best-known products, Safe and CoW Protocol, grew out of this work.

A later milestone came in 2022, when the xDai chain became Gnosis Chain and moved to a design tied to GNO staking, with GnosisDAO guiding the ecosystem. That change moved GNO from a mostly governance-oriented asset toward one that also helps secure a network.

Price history has swung widely. GNO reached an all-time high of about $644.20 on 2021-11-08 and an all-time low of about $6.88 on 2020-03-12. At about $113 as of 2026-11-05, it sits roughly 82% below that peak. Over the past year the price was almost flat, down about 0.8%, and it was up about 2.3% over the past seven days.

The project description today presents Gnosis as a full-stack ecosystem for everyday finance. The data does not give details of specific partnerships, so none are claimed here.

GNO carries the usual crypto risks plus several that are specific to it.

• Price volatility: the drop from the 2021 peak shows how far the price can fall.
• Liquidity: daily volume is small relative to market cap, which can make large trades costly.
• Staking risk: validators can lose part of a stake through penalties or slashing, and pooled staking adds the operator's own risks.
• Smart-contract and bridge risk: moving GNO between Ethereum, Arbitrum and Gnosis Chain relies on contracts that can have bugs or be exploited.
• Governance risk: decisions rest with token holders, and outcomes may not suit every holder.
• Product dependence: the project's reputation rests partly on products such as Safe, CoW Protocol and Gnosis Pay, and the usage figures cited for them come from the project itself.
• Scams: fake tokens and phishing sites copy popular names. Check the contract address on the correct chain before interacting.

This page is not financial advice and does not suggest buying or selling. Only commit money you can afford to lose and do your own research.

Most holders keep GNO in a self-custody wallet. A hardware wallet is a common choice for larger amounts, because the private keys stay off an internet-connected device. Any wallet that supports EVM networks can hold GNO on Ethereum, Arbitrum or Gnosis Chain.

Basic habits help a lot:

• Write down the recovery phrase offline and never share it or type it into a website.
• Check the official contract address for the network you are using before adding a token.
• Send a small test amount first when moving GNO to a new address or across a bridge.
• Confirm the network on both ends of every transfer.
• Check an approval before signing it, and revoke old token approvals you no longer need.

If you stake, read the terms of the pool or validator setup, including fees, lock-up or withdrawal rules and slashing risk. Funds left on a centralised exchange are held by that company, so you depend on its security and solvency. For a larger balance, some people use a multi-signature smart-contract wallet such as Safe, which needs more than one approval to move funds. It adds protection but also adds setup complexity.