NEO Co-Founders Clash Over Foundation Treasury, Governance and Transparency
NEO co-founders Erik Zhang and Da Hongfei have entered a public dispute over control, custody and financial transparency of the Neo Foundation’s assets. Zhang says he will resume full management of the Neo mainnet to protect NEO and GAS holders, and disclosed that most NEO/GAS tied to the foundation are openly distributed across 21 initial node addresses and one multisig wallet. He alleges roughly 8 million NEO/GAS were moved into multisig addresses earlier at Da’s request and claims auxiliary assets (BTC, ETH and other ecosystem tokens) have been held under Da’s personal control in a “black box” without verifiable reports, audits or asset lists. Zhang demands a complete, verifiable breakdown of foundation assets and has pledged an end‑of‑2025 financial report to be published in early Q1 2026. Da Hongfei counters that Zhang controls a supermajority of NEO and GAS, dominates treasury and consensus voting, and warns that concentrated token control risks network security; he says he pushed for placing NEO and GAS in foundation-managed multisig custody and denies Zhang’s accusations, including claims about a separate project (EON). The dispute centers on governance, custody model (single-control vs multisig) and disclosure practices for NEO and GAS and follows recent technical developments in the ecosystem such as NeoX (an EVM-compatible sidechain) and the N3 upgrade. For traders, the conflict raises short-term uncertainty around trust and governance of NEO, potential coordination risks in staking/consensus, and possible volatility ahead of the promised financial disclosures.
Bearish
The dispute directly concerns control and transparency of NEO and GAS — the network’s governance and utility tokens — and exposes concentrated token control and undocumented auxiliary assets. Such governance conflicts typically lower investor confidence and can trigger sell pressure or reduced staking participation in the short term. The absence of auditable asset disclosures and public accusations between founders raise counterparty and centralization risk, increasing perceived governance risk premium. In the near term, expect heightened volatility and a bearish bias for NEO price until verifiable disclosures or an authoritative resolution reduce uncertainty. Over the medium to long term, if Zhang’s promised verifiable financial report and clearer multisig custody arrangements are delivered, confidence could recover; conversely, prolonged conflict or proof of mismanaged assets would sustain downward pressure and possibly reduce network participation.