Important points
- Neo co-founders Eric Zhang and Da Hongfei are embroiled in a controversy over the financial management of the Neo Foundation.
- Mr. Zhang accused Mr. Hongfei of not keeping his promise on financial disclosure and suggested a change in the leadership role.
Erik Zhang and Da Honfei, co-founders of Neo, an open source, community-driven blockchain platform, are engaged in a public dispute over the financial transparency and management of 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 agreed that Hongfei would stop working on the Neo mainnet and focus on NeoX and SpoonOS.
Mr. Zhang also asked for a complete and verifiable breakdown of the Neo Foundation’s assets and expenditures.
“Disclosure is essential to address the community’s long-standing and legitimate concerns about transparency and governance,” he said.
In response, Hongfei claimed that Zhang controlled both the Treasury and Consensus, and warned that giving so much power to one individual posed risks to the network. He noted that he has long advocated for moving NEO and GAS to Foundation-managed multisig management.
“It is ironic that someone who controls the majority of Neo’s finances, dictates consensus node voting, and has shown no hesitation in hijacking the protocol at the expense of the community and token holders is being asked to ‘disclose financial information,’” Hongfei said.
In response, Zhang claimed that the co-founder personally oversaw most of the foundation’s assets without full disclosure.
Zhang also claimed that after Hongfei was forced out of Neo’s leadership, he began developing another blockchain project called EON.
“This is a fundamental conflict of interest and something Neo’s founders should never do,” Zhang wrote.
Hongfei dismissed the claims as “lies and fabrications of facts” and said: “NEO and GAS have always accounted for a super majority of NF’s assets, which can be confirmed in past financial reports.”
Zhang promised to release the year-end 2025 financial report in the first half of the first quarter of 2026, saying, “Once the financial report is released, we will find out who is lying.”
Neo was founded in 2014 and rebranded in 2017. Its smart contracts and dApp features have earned it the nickname “China’s Ethereum.” The ecosystem runs on two native tokens: NEO for governance and GAS for network utilities.
Last year, Neo announced Neo X, an EVM-compatible sidechain that improves interoperability and MEV tolerance, following the N3 upgrade that introduced several advanced features such as native storage, identity, and oracle services.