Safe Investor Calls on Swiss Watchdog Over Board Dispute

Greenfield Capital has filed a formal complaint with Switzerland's Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA), accusing the board of Safe Ecosystem Foundation of governance failures that the venture firm says have weakened the protocol's market position. Jascha Samadi, Greenfield's founding partner, disclosed the filing in an open letter to the Safe community on Sunday.

Safe Revenue and TVL Decline as Greenfield Challenges Board

Safe operates as a smart-account infrastructure layer, providing multi-signature wallets and custody tooling used across decentralized finance. The protocol reported annualized revenue exceeding $10 million at the end of 2025, with management setting a target of $100 million in annual recurring revenue by 2030. However, second-quarter 2026 revenue came in at $1.98 million, putting the company on an annualized run rate of roughly $8 million and falling short of a stated $20 million target for 2026. The protocol's total value locked has also declined sharply. Data from Safe's Dune dashboard shows that the total value held in Safe accounts fell from approximately $66 billion in January 2024 to around $30 billion by August 2026, a period during which the broader stablecoin supply grew by 135%.Stablecoins held in Safes on Ethereum grew by just 11 percent in the same window, while Safe's share of USDC in circulation slipped from 12.8 percent to 2.5 percent.

Greenfield Alleges Gnosis Ties Are Creating Board Conflicts

"Safe will not reach its potential under its current governance," Samadi wrote in an open letter to the Safe community. He pointed specifically to the continued presence of board members with ties to Gnosis, the project from which Safe originally spun out, arguing that those ties create conflicts of interest that have hampered independent decision-making.The complaint names Stefan George, a co-founder of Gnosis who remains on the Safe Foundation board, and Richard Meissner as directors whose dual affiliations Greenfield considers problematic. Samadi contended that the board has resisted governance reforms despite declining performance metrics.

Swiss Foundation Structure Shapes Greenfield’s Governance Challenge

The dispute highlights a tension common in crypto foundations structured under Swiss law. These entities often inherit boards from their founding projects, and Swiss foundation oversight tends to be lighter than corporate governance in other jurisdictions. When an investor believes a board is underperforming, the available remedies are limited to regulatory complaints rather than the proxy fights or shareholder votes typical of traditional equity structures.Greenfield's willingness to escalate to the ESA signals that institutional crypto investors are testing these regulatory channels as the asset class matures.

Safe Has Yet to Respond Publicly to Greenfield’s Complaint

The Safe Foundation has not issued a public response to the complaint. Safe and Gnosis had not commented publicly at the time of writing. The complaint gives Greenfield a regulatory channel to challenge the foundation's governance through Switzerland's supervisory framework.

Swiss Watchdog Could Decide Whether Safe Complaint Warrants Investigation

The ESA will review Greenfield's filing and determine whether to open a formal investigation into the foundation's governance. Any enforcement action could set a precedent for how Swiss-domiciled crypto foundations handle investor disputes going forward.