Safe investor’s Swiss complaint puts Gnosis conflict at the center
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Greenfield Capital has asked Switzerland’s Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA) to intervene in the governance of the Safe Ecosystem Foundation, and the conflict-of-interest allegations at the center of its complaint point squarely at one board member: Stefan George, the CTO of Gnosis, a company that sells wallet products competing with Safe.
Greenfield founding partner Jascha Samadi announced the supervisory complaint in an open letter to the Safe community on Sunday, October 4, 2026, after more than a year of private engagement with the Zug-based foundation that oversees SafeDAO and its treasury. The complaint alleges that George, who sits on the foundation’s board, holds a senior role at Gnosis, which operates wallet products that compete directly with Safe, the self-custody smart-account infrastructure spun out of Gnosis in 2022.
“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 wrote in the letter.
The complaint also flags ties between fellow board member Richard Meissner and companies that develop and operate Safe products, and alleges, according to Greenfield, that the foundation’s board has at times had only two members. That claim is the complainant’s allegation and has not been independently verified.
Untested claims tied to the Bybit hack
The dispute draws on older, untested allegations as well. Following the February 2025 Bybit hack, claims surfaced that George and Gnosis co-founder Martin Köppelmann pressured Safe’s co-founders to reallocate a significant amount of SAFE tokens, with a reported threat to sell Gnosis’s stake of roughly 10%. No authority has tested those claims, and the letter does not rest its complaint on them.
What Greenfield wants the regulator to do
Greenfield has asked the watchdog to examine the foundation’s governance and determine whether corrective measures are needed. Its specific demands, made during months of negotiation before the filing, were to replace George and expand the board with independent, externally recruited members with expertise in finance, risk management and business strategy, plus a full review of Safe’s strategy, product, organization and tokenomics with measurable targets. The foundation’s response, Greenfield says, was to set up a strategy committee with no decision-making power and to fill existing board vacancies.
“But 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 wrote.
Greenfield, which invested in Safe’s 2022 financing round, says it has kept 100% of its SAFE tokens, does not intend to sue individuals or take control of Safe, and wants to remain a constructive participant in the ecosystem. No response from the foundation, George, Gnosis or Meissner is on record. The ESA has not said whether it will act on the complaint.
