Squads Protocol fills a critical infrastructure gap on Solana: safe management of large funds by teams and organizations. When a DeFi protocol holds tens of millions in treasury, or when a team needs multiple founders to approve program upgrades, a simple single-key wallet is dangerously inadequate. Squads enables Solana-native M-of-N multisig accounts — where N signers share control and M must approve any transaction — with an intuitive web app that makes multisig operations accessible without command-line interaction. By 2024, Squads had processed tens of billions of dollars in transactions and was the default treasury management solution for most serious Solana protocols including major DEXes, liquid staking protocols, and DAO treasuries.
What Multisig Solves
Single-key wallet risks:
- Private key theft → total loss
- Founder exit → funds inaccessible or stolen
- Social engineering → fraudulently authorized transactions
Multisig requirements:
- M-of-N sigs required (e.g., 3-of-5 means 3 of 5 key holders must approve)
- No single point of failure
- Transparent approval process (all signers see proposed transactions before approving)
- On-chain record of all approvals
Squads Features
The key features are described below.
Multi-Sig Vaults
- Set M-of-N threshold (any combination)
- Send any SPL token or SOL from the vault
- Create “sub-vaults” for specific purposes (operational, long-term reserve, etc.)
Program Authority Management
- Solana programs (smart contracts) have an “upgrade authority” — an address that can push code updates
- Best practice: set upgrade authority to a Squads multisig, not a single wallet
- Requires M-of-N approval before any code update can be deployed
- This prevents a single compromised developer key from pushing malicious code
How many Solana protocols use this:
- Virtually all major Solana DeFi protocols use Squads multisig as their program upgrade authority
- This is the practical security baseline for Solana DeFi in 2024+
Transaction Builder
- Members see a decoded transaction (what it does, not just raw bytes)
- Approve, reject, or comment on proposals
- Threshold reached → transaction executable
Treasury Operations
- Token swaps (execute swaps with multisig approval)
- Protocol interactions (collateralize, stake, etc. all from multisig approval UI)
Squads v3 → v4
Squads v3: The widely deployed version powering most Solana protocol treasuries. Fully audited by multiple firms.
Squads v4 (Multisig Smart Accounts):
- Introduced “spending limits” — authorized signers can spend up to X amount without full multisig approval (for operational convenience)
- Roles: owners, members with different permission levels
- Batch transactions: propose multiple operations as a single approval
- More composable: can integrate with any Solana program more flexibly
Security Model
Squads contracts are:
- Open source
- Audited by OtterSec, Neodyme, and other top Solana security firms
- Immutable (not upgradeable by Squads team — the contracts themselves are fixed)
- Because the contracts are immutable, the team cannot deploy a backdoor after the fact
One of Squads’ strongest selling points: the creators cannot rug their own product by pushing a malicious program upgrade. The immutability is a trust guarantee for protocol teams using Squads as their upgrade authority.
Adoption Statistics (2024)
- Transactions processed: $10B+ total transaction volume
- Vaults created: Tens of thousands
- Notable users: Jupiter, Orca, Marginfi, Kamino, Jito, Tensor, Drift, and most other major Solana protocols
- Protocol upgrade authorities: A significant majority of major Solana programs use Squads as their upgrade authority
Squads vs. Gnosis Safe
| Feature | Squads (Solana) | Gnosis Safe (EVM) |
|---|---|---|
| Chain | Solana | Ethereum/EVM chains |
| UX | Native Solana UX | Native EVM UX |
| Transaction fees | Sub-cent | Variable (can be $5-50) |
| Smart account | Yes | Yes |
| NFT/token support | SPL tokens | ERC-20/ERC-721 |
| Program authority | Yes (Solana-native) | No direct equivalent |
Gnosis Safe is the EVM equivalent — the dominant multisig for Ethereum/EVM protocol treasuries. Squads is the Solana equivalent. They’re parallel products for their respective ecosystems.
How to Use Squads
- Get SOL for setup transactions via
- Go to app.squads.so and connect your Solana wallet
- Create a squad: Add member addresses, set threshold (e.g., 2-of-3)
- Transfer assets to the squad vault address
- Propose transactions — other members approve via the app
- Execute when threshold is reached
For personal security (not multisig): — hardware wallets work well as individual signer keys in Squads
Social Media Sentiment
Squads has an almost uniformly positive reputation in the Solana developer ecosystem. It solves a real problem (safe multisig on Solana) without the complexity of rolling your own multisig implementation. The decision to make the v3/v4 contracts immutable was praised as a trust signal — Squads cannot change the rules after deployment. The product is considered critical infrastructure for serious Solana protocol development. The main complaint is that it’s “boring infrastructure” — it works, people rely on it, and it doesn’t generate the excitement of DeFi speculation. A pending governance token (SMPL) was discussed as a future development. The breadth of major Solana protocol adoption is effectively the social proof — if Jito, Jupiter, Kamino, and Orca all trust Squads for their treasuries, that’s a powerful endorsement.
Last updated: 2026-04
Related Terms
Sources
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