# Secure Your Treasury

Managing a treasury in a Web3 project is one of the most critical responsibilities for founders, DAOs, and protocol teams. A compromised treasury can lead to devastating losses, damaged reputation, and loss of community trust. This document outlines key practices to **keep your treasury secure**.

***

## Principles of Treasury Safety

* **Minimize single points of failure** — no single individual should have the ability to move all funds.
* **Defense-in-depth** — combine multiple layers of security (on-chain, off-chain, operational).
* **Transparency with accountability** — the community should understand how treasury funds are safeguarded and used.

***

## Key Practices

### 1. Use Multi-Signature Wallets

* Deploy a **multi-sig (e.g., Gnosis Safe)** for treasury management.
* Require **at least 2/3 or 3/5 approvals** to move funds.
* Regularly review signers’ activity and update signer sets when members change.

### 2. Role Separation

* Separate **operational wallets** (day-to-day payments) from **treasury wallets** (long-term reserves).
* Keep treasury funds in a more secure setup with higher signer thresholds.

### 3. Access Control and Signer Security

* Signers should use **hardware wallets** (Ledger, Trezor) rather than browser extensions.
* Enable **passphrase protection and biometric/PIN locks**.
* Keep seed phrases **offline and geographically distributed**.

### 4. On-Chain Safeguards

* Consider **time-lock contracts** for large treasury actions, giving the community time to review before execution.
* Use **spending limits** for operational wallets to prevent draining in case of compromise.

### 5. Diversification of Assets

* Avoid keeping 100% of funds in a single token or chain.
* Diversify between **stablecoins, ETH, BTC, and protocol-native tokens**.
* If holding stablecoins, diversify across issuers (USDC, USDT, DAI).

### 6. Insurance and Custody Options

* For larger treasuries, explore **crypto insurance** providers.
* Consider **qualified custodians** if regulatory or institutional requirements apply.

### 7. Continuous Monitoring

* Set up **real-time alerts** (e.g., Tenderly, Forta, OpenZeppelin Defender) for unusual transactions.
* Regularly **audit treasury contracts and signers**.
* Run **internal drills** to simulate compromised keys or stolen funds.

### 8. Governance Security

* If treasury spending is controlled by governance:
  * Use **guarded launch strategies** to avoid malicious proposals.
  * Employ **veto powers or emergency pause mechanisms**.
  * Audit the governance contracts regularly.

## Emergency Planning

* Prepare a **disaster recovery plan**: what happens if a signer is compromised or unavailable?
* Ensure **backup signers** can be onboarded quickly.
* Document procedures for community communication in case of incidents.


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.optimumsec.xyz/ongoing-operations/secured-treasury.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.