What Is Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) in Crypto?

SAFU is the acronym for the "Secure Asset Fund for Users," an insurance fund established by Binance for emergency cases. In July 2018, Binance pledged 10% of all trading fees to the SAFU fund to protect user funds. The money is stored in a separate cold wallet. According to Binance, the Secure Asset Fund for Users was valued at one billion dollars on January 29, 2022. SAFU wallets store BNB, BTC, and BUSD. 

What Does “Funds Are SAFU” Mean?

"SAFU" plays on the word "safe" and first appeared in a YouTube video from content creator Bizonacci in 2018. Bizonacci uploaded a video called "Funds are Safu" in 2018 after Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, tweeted the phrase "Funds are safe," following unscheduled maintenance. The video subsequently went viral and coined the meme.  

Where Did “Funds are SAFU” Come From?

On March 7, 2018, Binance users woke up to an unscheduled maintenance period and could no longer log in to their accounts. The root cause of the maintenance was a malfunction in the SYS/BTC trading pair, causing hackers to exploit the security leak. To reassure nervous users that their funds were not at risk, Changpeng Zhao tweeted "All funds are safe."

The Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), as well as the viral video, led to the term becoming a staple of crypto slang terms. Changpeng Zhao later helped popularize the meme, using the hashtag #safu on several occasions and tweeting "Funds are SAFU" during subsequent maintenance of his cryptocurrency exchange.