Neo co-founders escalate public feud over treasury control and transparency
Key Takeaways
Erik Zhang and Da Hongfei, co-founders of Neo, an open-source, community-driven blockchain platform, have engaged in a public dispute over financial transparency and control of the Neo Foundation’s assets.
In a statement on X on Wednesday, Zhang accused Hongfei of failing to issue promised statements and financial reports. He added that the two had agreed that Hongfei would stop working on the Neo mainnet and focus on NeoX and SpoonOS.
Zhang also pressed for a complete, verifiable breakdown of the Neo Foundation’s assets and spending.
“The disclosure is essential to address the community’s long-standing and legitimate concerns regarding transparency and governance,” he said.
Hongfei responded by claiming that Zhang dominates both the treasury and consensus, and warned that placing so much authority in one individual creates risk for the network. He noted that he has advocated for years to shift NEO and GAS into foundation-managed multisig custody.
“It is ironic to be asked for ‘financial disclosure’ by the very person who controls the super majority of Neo’s treasury, dictates the voting of consensus nodes, and has shown no hesitation to hijack the protocol at the expense of the community and token holders,” Hongfei stated.
In response, Zhang maintained that his co-founder had personally overseen a large portion of the foundation’s assets without full disclosure.
Zhang also alleged that Hongfei began developing a separate blockchain project called EON after pushing him out of Neo’s leadership.
“This is a fundamental conflict of interest—and not something a Neo founder should ever do,” Zhang wrote.
Hongfei dismissed the claims as “lying and fabricating facts,” stating that “NEO & GAS were always the super majority of NF’s assets, which can be found in past financial reports.”
Zhang committed to releasing an end-of-2025 financial report in the first half of Q1 2026, stating, “We will know who is lying once the financial report is released.”
Founded in 2014 and rebranded in 2017, Neo has earned the nickname “Ethereum of China” for its smart-contract and dApp capabilities. The ecosystem runs on two native tokens, NEO for governance and GAS for network utility.
Last year, Neo launched Neo X, an EVM-compatible sidechain improving interoperability and MEV resistance, following the N3 upgrade that introduced several advanced features like native storage, identity, and oracle services.
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