Neo co-founder Da Hongfei has proposed a sweeping governance overhaul of the Neo Foundation after its first public financial disclosure since 2019 revealed approximately $461 million in combined assets held by the Neo Foundation and Neo Global Development at the end of 2025. The supporting evidence appears in the cited X post.
The proposal aims to formally dismantle what Hongfei calls a decade of founder-driven, informal control over one of crypto’s oldest blockchain networks.
The financial disclosure shows the Neo Foundation and Neo Global Development currently control roughly 41 million NEO tokens, representing 31.3% of supply, largely held under single-signature custody. Hongfei’s restructuring plan, dubbed “Giveback II,” would return 49.5 million reserved NEO to the community and fold NGD-managed investments back into a restructured foundation operating under mandatory annual reports and onchain attestations for large transfers.
A Formal Structure to Replace "Trust Me" Governance
The plan would redomicile the Neo Foundation to the Cayman Islands, establish a five-member governing board, and install an independent Supervisor with authority to block bylaw violations.
Crucially, it would bar both co-founders from sitting on the board or supervisory body for 24 months, a clause Hongfei frames as a necessary break from personality-driven control.
Hongfei cited Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin’s influence-through-research model as the standard founders should aspire to, arguing that multi-signature wallets for Bitcoin, Ether, stablecoins, and other liquid assets should be fully disclosed.
The shift is designed, in his words, to replace “trust me” governance with verifiable, institutionalized oversight.
Co-founder Erik Zhang has pushed back publicly on multiple elements of the proposal. Zhang argues that grounding Neo’s legitimacy in offchain legal structures still leaves room for opaque third-party attestations rather than directly verifiable onchain addresses, undermining the transparency the plan claims to deliver.
Zhang also contends that excluding him from board participation for two years strips Neo of critical technical oversight at a sensitive moment.
He characterized the Cayman Islands redomiciliation as a cosmetic structural change that sidesteps unresolved accountability questions and historical transparency gaps rather than genuinely addressing them.
Governance Fights Ripple Across the Broader Crypto Landscape
The clash inside Neo reflects a wider tension across decentralized finance, where aging blockchain projects with substantial multi-million-dollar treasuries struggle to transition away from the informal, founder-centric models that defined their early years.
Years of deadlock between Hongfei and Zhang have left Neo’s development cycle effectively stalled, increasing pressure from token holders and investors for structural accountability.
The Aave ecosystem has faced its own prolonged governance dispute between founder-aligned factions and broader community stakeholders, a parallel that underscores how treasury control and insider influence remain flashpoints for protocols built around decentralized ideals.
Neo’s resolution, or continued stalemate, is being watched as a potential template for how older networks handle these transitions.
With $461 million in disclosed assets now on the table and both co-founders publicly at odds, the outcome will test whether formal legal and financial structures can resolve disputes that years of informal coordination failed to settle.
The next steps depend heavily on whether community stakeholders back Hongfei’s framework or demand a renegotiated approach that addresses Zhang’s transparency objections.
Not Financial Advice: This article is for informational purposes only. Crypto investments are highly volatile. Always do your own research.
