Greenfield Capital Files Supervisory Complaint Against Safe Ecosystem Foundation Amid Growing Governance and Performance Concerns

Cryptocurrency investor Greenfield Capital has escalated a prolonged dispute with the Safe Ecosystem Foundation by filing a formal supervisory complaint with Switzerland’s foundation watchdog. The legal move seeks to trigger significant changes to the foundation’s board of directors following what Greenfield describes as months of fruitless engagement and a failure to resolve deep-seated governance concerns.

In an open letter published to the Safe community, Jascha Samadi, founding partner at Greenfield Capital, detailed the decision to bring the matter before Switzerland’s Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA). According to Samadi, the complaint was initiated after his firm grew increasingly concerned about the overall trajectory of the Safe project since early 2025. Greenfield pointed to what it views as a glaring underperformance relative to the broader digital asset market, as well as a systemic lack 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.

In response to the escalation, Samuel Akpan, a spokesperson for the Safe Ecosystem Foundation, stated that the organization has not yet received a formal inquiry from the Swiss regulatory authority and declined to comment on the specific details or merits of the potential complaint.

The brewing governance dispute arrives at a critical financial juncture for Safe. The project has publicly targeted a break-even financial milestone and a doubling of its revenue performance throughout 2026. In a corporate announcement released in February, project leadership reported generating more than $10 million in annualized project-wide revenue by the close of 2025. Furthermore, the organization outlined an ambitious long-term roadmap aimed at achieving $100 million in annual recurring revenue by the year 2030.

Despite these forward-looking projections, Greenfield Capital has cast doubt on the feasibility of these targets, highlighting what it perceives as stark discrepancies between official forecasts and actual operational metrics.

Greenfield Questions Safe’s Revenue Growth and Market Share

To substantiate its grievances, Greenfield Capital drew attention to Safe’s second-quarter financial performance, which recorded $1.98 million in revenue. The firm noted that this figure translates to an annualized run rate of approximately $8 million, falling considerably short of the $20 million revenue expectation laid out for 2026.

Beyond its immediate financial evaluations, Greenfield argued that Safe is systematically losing ground while the broader cryptocurrency sector experiences expansion. Samadi pointed to a stark contraction in foundational metrics, noting that between January 2024 and August 2026, the total value held within Safe accounts plunged from $66 billion down to $30 billion. This represents a decline of more than 50% over a two-and-a-half-year period, contrasting sharply with the overall decentralized finance market, where total value locked grew by roughly 40% across the same timeframe.

Additional metrics cited in the critique highlight a similar divergence in stablecoin adoption. While the total global supply of stablecoins expanded by approximately 135% during the evaluation window, the volume of stablecoins held within Safe accounts on the Ethereum network grew by a modest 11%. More specifically, Greenfield highlighted that Safe’s dominance over USDC in circulation suffered a dramatic contraction, falling from 12.8% down to 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.

Greenfield directly linked these downward trends to structural deficiencies within the foundation, specifically targeting a perceived lack of independent board members possessing objective, experienced decision-making capabilities. The investor raised pointed questions regarding potential conflicts of interest at the highest levels of leadership. Specifically, Greenfield cited board member Stefan George’s ongoing role at Gnosis, alongside fellow board member Richard Meissner’s close professional ties to various entities actively developing and operating Safe-related products.

For months, Greenfield has urged the foundation to undertake a comprehensive governance restructuring. These private appeals included demands to replace George and to systematically expand the board by recruiting independent external members with professional expertise spanning traditional finance, risk management, and corporate business strategy. Having exhausted informal avenues, Greenfield is now asking the Swiss regulatory watchdog to conduct an exhaustive examination of the foundation’s internal governance and determine what corrective measures may be necessary to protect the ecosystem’s future.