Greenfield Capital, an early investor in crypto wallet infrastructure provider Safe, has asked Switzerland's foundation regulator to step into a governance fight that has been building for more than a year.
- In an open letter posted Saturday to the Safe Community Forum and shared on X, Jascha Samadi, founding partner at Greenfield Capital, said the venture firm had filed a supervisory complaint with the Swiss Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations, or ESA.
- Samadi said the move came after months of private talks and research left the firm convinced the problems "will not be resolved from inside the current structure."
- Safe is one of crypto's biggest self-custody infrastructure providers. Its smart account technology is used by companies, DAOs and crypto treasuries and currently secures more than $27 billion in digital assets, according to the Foundation.
- Greenfield backed Safe in 2022 when the project was spun out of Gnosis and says it still holds its full SAFE token position.
The board fell below its own minimum
One of Greenfield's clearest complaints concerns the Foundation Council, Safe's top governing body.
The Foundation's deed requires at least three board members, according to Greenfield. But after Safe co-founder Christoph Simmchen left, the board operated with "only two" between September 2025 and April 2026.
The investor had already been pushing Safe to bring in independent directors with experience in governance, finance, security and compliance.
Instead, the vacant seat eventually went to Richard Meissner, another Safe co-founder and former Gnosis employee.
"Once again," Greenfield wrote, the board "kept things within its own circle."
The dispute goes beyond one empty seat
Samadi said the firm began raising concerns in early 2025 and later interviewed former employees, major Safe users, developers and other investors.
He added that the firm concluded that problems around strategy, staff turnover, product direction and accountability all pointed back to governance. It asked Safe to refresh the board, bring in outside operators and review the project's strategy and token economics.
Jascha Samadi
Safe did create a Strategy Commission this year, but Samadi says the body is advisory and has no power over the Foundation board.
The complaint isn't a court case. Samadi stressed that it's "not a lawsuit against individuals," but a request for ESA to examine whether the Foundation is being run in line with Swiss law and its own rules.
- Safe hasn't publicly responded to the complaint at the time of writing.