Neo Co-Founder Proposes $461m Treasury Overhaul As Public Feud With Zhang Escalates

$NEO co-founder Da Hongfei has proposed a sweeping restructuring of the Neo Foundation, bringing a long-running internal dispute with fellow co-founder Erik Zhang into public view. The proposal follows Neo's first financial disclosure since 2019, which revealed $461 million in combined assets held across the Neo Foundation and Neo Global Development.

Under Hongfei's plan, the foundation would be redomiciled in the Cayman Islands, governed by a newly formed five-member board alongside an independent supervisor. In an unusual move, the proposal would bar both co-founders from sitting on the board for a period of 24 months. A companion initiative, dubbed "Giveback II," would return 49.5 million reserved $NEO tokens to the community.

Zhang has pushed back sharply. Writing on X, the @Neo_Blockchain co-founder dismissed the Cayman redomicile as a "cosmetic shell change," arguing the structure still leaves room for opaque third-party attestations rather than transparent, verifiable onchain addresses.

Hongfei, for his part, offered a candid assessment of the network's recent trajectory. He acknowledged that Neo's user base has contracted significantly since 2021, attributing part of the decline to delays in the N3 upgrade that caused the project to miss the DeFi boom, as well as a loss of activity in the Chinese market.

Looking ahead, Hongfei is positioning Neo X as an "agent-first" blockchain designed to serve autonomous AI agents transacting onchain, a strategy he hopes can define a new role for the network as competition in the layer-one space intensifies.