Early Safe investor Greenfield Capital files complaint with Swiss regulator over foundation governance
Odaily reports: Greenfield Capital, an early investor in Safe, has published an open letter stating that it has filed a regulatory complaint with the Swiss Federal Foundation Supervisory Authority (ESA) regarding the Safe Ecosystem Foundation. Greenfield Capital stated that it has never sold any SAFE tokens since investing in Safe in 2022, but the total assets held in Safe accounts have declined from approximately $6.6 billion at the beginning of 2024 to about $3 billion. Over the same period, total DeFi TVL grew by roughly 40% and stablecoin supply increased by 135%, while stablecoins within Safe grew by only 11%. The firm believes that Safe's share of the self-custody market is declining.
Greenfield Capital stated that about a year ago, it was unable to form a reliable judgment based solely on information provided by the Safe team, so it conducted an independent review together with former employees, major users, ecosystem developers, and other investors, and concluded that the issues identified all ultimately related to governance. The firm had previously requested refreshing the foundation's board of directors with experienced and independent members, restructuring management and bringing in operators with experience scaling infrastructure businesses, and having the board lead a review of strategy, product, organizational structure, and tokenomics while setting quantifiable key performance indicators. Greenfield Capital said that since late 2025, it has made these requests to the foundation both directly and through legal counsel, but the foundation only established a strategy committee without decision-making authority and appointed people from existing circles to fill board vacancies, which ultimately led to the filing of the regulatory complaint with ESA. The firm emphasized that this action is not a lawsuit against individuals and that it does not intend to take over Safe; its concerns are limited solely to foundation governance and board composition. It remains positive about the work of the Safe Labs operating team and will continue to cooperate as an ecosystem participant and Safenet validator.
