Greenfield Capital Escalates Governance Dispute With Safe Ecosystem Foundation Through Swiss Regulatory Complaint

A mounting governance dispute within the decentralized finance ecosystem has taken a formal legal turn, as crypto investment firm Greenfield Capital moves to intervene in the management of the Safe Ecosystem Foundation. Greenfield Capital, a prominent investor in the Safe ecosystem, announced that it has officially filed a supervisory complaint with Switzerland’s Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA). The regulatory action seeks to compel sweeping changes to the foundation’s board of directors, following what the investor describes as months of protracted, unsuccessful engagement aimed at resolving deep-seated governance concerns.

The escalation was made public through an open letter addressed to the broader Safe community by Jascha Samadi, founding partner at Greenfield Capital. According to Samadi, the decision to approach Swiss regulators came after his firm grew increasingly concerned about the overall health, trajectory, and operational performance of Safe since early 2025. Greenfield argues that the project’s current leadership structure is fundamentally misaligned with its market potential, citing lagging performance metrics relative to the broader cryptocurrency sector and a glaring absence of independent voices on the foundation’s governing board.

"We have come to believe, after more than a year of research, dialogue and patience, that Safe will not reach its potential under its current governance," Samadi stated in the open letter, highlighting the exhaustive lengths to which his firm went before resorting to regulatory intervention.

In response to the unfolding situation, Samuel Akpan, a spokesperson for the Safe Ecosystem Foundation, addressed the development, stating that the foundation has not yet received a formal inquiry or notification from the Swiss federal watchdog. Consequently, the foundation declined to offer detailed commentary regarding the specific allegations and claims outlined in Greenfield’s regulatory complaint.

The timing of this high-stakes governance showdown coincides with a critical financial juncture for the project. Safe has publicly laid out ambitious growth milestones, targeting operational break-even and a dramatic doubling of its revenue throughout 2026. In an official announcement released in February, the project reported generating more than $10 million in project-wide annualized revenue at the close of 2025. Furthermore, leadership outlined a much longer-term strategic ambition to scale that figure up to $100 million in annual recurring revenue by the year 2030, a goal that relies heavily on capturing a larger share of the enterprise and self-custody market.

Greenfield Questions Safe’s Revenue Growth and Market Share

Despite the optimistic long-term projections shared by Safe’s leadership, Greenfield Capital has pointed to a stark discrepancy between these targets and the project’s actual financial performance. The investment firm highlighted Safe’s second-quarter revenue figures, which stood at $1.98 million. When annualized, this performance translates to a run rate of roughly $8 million—a figure that falls significantly short of the anticipated $20 million revenue expectation that has been set for 2026.

Greenfield’s critique extends well beyond raw revenue numbers, diving deep into broader market adoption trends. The firm argues that Safe is steadily losing vital ground within the digital asset landscape, particularly at a time when the broader cryptocurrency market has experienced substantial expansion. To illustrate this point, Samadi pointed to on-chain data spanning from January 2024 through August 2026, during which the total value held within Safe accounts fell dramatically from $66 billion down to $30 billion. This represents a contraction of more than 50% over a two-and-a-half-year period, standing in sharp contrast to the decentralized finance sector as a whole, which saw its total value locked grow by approximately 40% over the same timeframe.

Additional metrics cited in the open letter underline what Greenfield views as systemic underperformance in key growth sectors. While the total global supply of stablecoins grew by roughly 135% during the comparison period, the volume of stablecoins held inside Safe accounts on the Ethereum network crept upward by a mere 11%. More concerningly, Safe’s market share of USD Coin in general circulation experienced a severe decline, dropping from 12.8% down to just 2.5%.

"In the category that has grown the most and that self-custody infrastructure is best placed to serve, Safe has been losing ground for two and a half years," Samadi emphasized, framing the situation as an urgent structural crisis rather than a temporary market fluctuation.

At the core of Greenfield’s complaint is an assertion that these performance issues are inextricably linked to internal governance failures, specifically pointing to a lack of independent board members capable of providing objective, experienced decision-making. The investment firm has raised specific concerns regarding potential conflicts of interest within the foundation’s leadership structure. In particular, Greenfield pointed to the dual roles and affiliations of current board members, noting Stefan George’s ongoing involvement with Gnosis, alongside Richard Meissner’s direct ties to commercial entities tasked with developing and operating core Safe products.

According to Greenfield Capital, the firm spent months privately urging the foundation to restructure its governing body. These private overtures included requests to replace George and to systematically expand the board by recruiting independent external members who possess specialized expertise in traditional finance, risk management, and long-term business strategy. Having exhausted dialogue channels without achieving the desired structural reforms, Greenfield is now officially asking the Swiss federal regulatory authority to examine the foundation’s internal governance practices and determine whether mandatory corrective measures must be enforced to protect the integrity and future of the project.