ScopeLift CEO Says Token Value Returns Face Greater Scrutiny as Legal Concerns Shift

Protocols that earn fees and issue tokens may face harder questions about why holders receive no share of that value. Ben DiFrancesco, founder and CEO of ScopeLift, said on Uneasy Money that the legal concerns once used to explain the absence of dividends or token buybacks are losing force. His concern is that teams able to return value will attract “increased scrutiny” if they choose not to explain their position.

That argument ties token design to the economics of a protocol, rather than treating a token as a governance instrument whose relationship to the product can remain vague. DiFrancesco’s test is practical: if a protocol earns fees, or could earn them, and has a token, its approach to those funds should have a basis in the system’s actual activity.

ScopeLift took over the Tally governance platform in March and renamed it Cactus in June. DiFrancesco made his comments in an episode recorded Oct. 7. He described a generation of tokens designed without dividends or buybacks because teams feared that promising such returns could create legal exposure. “Now, the good news I think is that that’s changing, right?” he said.

Connecting fees to token economics

DiFrancesco’s example is a protocol that charges a fee and then distributes that revenue or uses it to buy tokens through a defined process. The important part, in his telling, is that the return should be connected to a real source of value. A token plan built around protocol activity gives users and holders something concrete to assess: where the funds come from, what happens to them, and how the mechanism relates to the system.

He pointed to Uniswap as a large project pursuing this kind of approach. A September governance proposal said Uniswap protocol fees, live on Ethereum mainnet since late December 2025 and later on other chains, are claimed by searchers who burn UNI. That arrangement links fee activity with a reduction in token supply. It is a specific mechanism described in the proposal, rather than a general promise that token holders will receive revenue.

Those distinctions matter. A fee mechanism depends on the protocol actually generating fees, and its effects depend on how the rules are designed and used. A buyback or token burn does not, on its own, establish how much value reaches holders or whether the system’s economics support a lasting return. DiFrancesco’s point is that teams should be able to explain the connection between the product and its token with more than a broad claim about future utility.

He also connected token value to what he called economic security. If a protocol protects valuable assets, the token’s market value may affect the cost of acquiring enough influence to threaten the system. DiFrancesco described a risk if a token’s value falls below “what it would be worth to steal the assets that the protocol protects.” That framing makes token economics relevant to the protocol’s security assumptions, though it does not establish that a particular token price or return model will prevent an attack.

For teams that argue their token has no role in the product, DiFrancesco was blunt: “I don’t buy that excuse anymore, right? The regulatory excuse is going away.” His claim is that changing legal guidance may leave less room for teams to point to legal uncertainty as the sole reason they have not considered returning value. It does not mean every protocol should adopt the same mechanism, or that a fee distribution is appropriate for every token.

What the guidance says—and what it leaves open

An SEC staff FAQ dated Sept. 25 said that a buyback announcement would not, by itself, count as a promise of essential managerial efforts if a crypto system is functional. A Sept. 28 revision added that the system must also have no central party, as Unchained reported. The added condition makes the guidance narrower than a broad reading of the original FAQ might suggest.

For protocol teams, the practical question is therefore not simply whether a buyback is possible. The system’s design and control structure also matter under the conditions described in the FAQ. Teams considering any return mechanism still have to explain who controls it, how it operates, and whether its design matches the protocol’s stated structure. The source does not establish how any particular project would be assessed.

Safe’s governance dispute adds context

The discussion took place during a conversation about Safe, the multisig wallet. Greenfield Capital, an investor in Safe, said in an Oct. 4 open letter that it had asked Switzerland’s federal supervisor of foundations to examine the governance of the Safe Ecosystem Foundation. Greenfield called for independent board members and a strategy review led by the board.

Greenfield said Safe accounts held about $30 billion in August 2026, compared with $66 billion in January 2024. A foundation spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the foundation had received no formal inquiry and declined to discuss the details of Greenfield’s complaint. Those figures describe assets held in Safe accounts; they do not, by themselves, explain the causes of the change or establish the value of a token.

DiFrancesco praised the Gnosis team, where Safe began, and described demands for clearer token value plans as “a maturation of the ecosystem.” The takeaway for token holders and developers is a sharper expectation of accountability: when a protocol has revenue and a token, teams may need to show how the two relate—or give a clear reason they do not.

Related Listen: Why the ‘Regulatory Excuse’ for Tokens Is Ending: Uneasy Money

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