Greenfield Capital, a prominent investor in the decentralized custody ecosystem Safe, has escalated a long-running dispute by filing a formal supervisory complaint with Switzerland’s foundation watchdog. The legal move seeks an intervention and subsequent structural changes to the Safe Ecosystem Foundation’s board of directors, following months of private negotiations and engagement that Greenfield says failed to resolve critical governance concerns.
In an open letter published on Sunday addressed to the broader Safe community, Jascha Samadi, a founding partner at Greenfield Capital, detailed the motivations behind the escalation. He stated that the formal complaint submitted to Switzerland’s Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA) comes as a direct result of his firm becoming increasingly anxious about the strategic direction and overall health of Safe since early 2025. According to Samadi and Greenfield Capital, these anxieties are compounded by the project’s underwhelming financial and market performance relative to the wider digital asset landscape, alongside a persistent lack of independent, objective 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 noted in his public address to the community.
In response to the developments, a spokesperson for the Safe Ecosystem Foundation, Samuel Akpan, addressed the matter by stating that the foundation had not yet received any formal inquiry or documentation from the ESA. Akpan declined to comment further on the specific details or merits of the potential complaint brought forward by Greenfield Capital.
This high-stakes governance dispute arrives at a pivotal commercial moment for Safe, which is actively targeting operational break-even and a doubling of its revenue profile throughout 2026. In a corporate announcement published in February, the project reported generating more than $10 million in project-wide annualized revenue by the close of 2025, while simultaneously outlining an ambitious, longer-term roadmap aimed at achieving $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by the year 2030.
Greenfield Questions Safe’s Revenue Growth and Market Share
Despite the optimistic forward-looking projections shared by project leadership, Greenfield Capital’s supervisory complaint heavily scrutinizes Safe’s recent financial metrics and market positioning. The investment firm specifically highlighted a second-quarter revenue figure of $1.98 million. When annualized, this represents a run rate of approximately $8 million, which Greenfield points out falls drastically short of the $20 million revenue expectations that had been anticipated for the 2026 fiscal year.
Furthermore, the investment firm argued that Safe has been steadily losing ground and market share even as the broader cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFi) sectors experience expansion. Providing quantitative backing to their concerns, Samadi pointed out that between January 2024 and August 2026, the total value held within Safe accounts experienced a steep decline, dropping from $66 billion down to $30 billion—a contraction of more than 50%. Over that exact same timeframe, the aggregate total value locked (TVL) across the broader decentralized finance ecosystem grew by roughly 40%.
The discrepancy in growth trends extends further into liquidity metrics. Greenfield noted that while total stablecoin supply across the industry expanded by approximately 135% during the evaluation period, the volume of stablecoins held inside Safe accounts on the Ethereum network grew by a mere 11%. More starkly, Safe’s market share of USD Coin (USDC) in active circulation plummeted 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 in the assessment.
To Greenfield Capital, these troubling operational and financial trends are fundamentally tied to structural governance shortcomings, specifically pointing to a lack of independent board members possessing experienced, impartial decision-making capabilities. The firm’s public letter specifically raised concerns regarding potential conflicts of interest within the leadership structure. These include board member Stefan George and his concurrent role at Gnosis, as well as fellow board member Richard Meissner and his operational ties to various commercial entities engaged in developing and operating Safe-related products.
Prior to taking the legal step of filing with the Swiss regulatory watchdog, Greenfield stated that it spent many months attempting to engage constructively with the foundation. The investor had requested a comprehensive restructuring of the governance framework, which included replacing George and expanding the board to incorporate independent, externally recruited members with specialized expertise spanning finance, enterprise risk management, and long-term business strategy.
With those private appeals failing to yield the desired structural reforms, Greenfield Capital is now asking the Swiss foundation authority to closely examine the foundation’s current governance practices and determine whether mandatory corrective measures must be enforced to protect the interests of the ecosystem and its stakeholders.
Crypto Startups & Venture Capital
Crypto Startups & Venture Capital
Crypto Startups & Venture Capital
