Veteran Chinese Public Chain NEO's Two Founders in a Feud, Financial Opacity as the Core Reason
Summary: A public conflict has erupted between Erik Zhang (Zhang Zhengwen) and Da Hongfei, the two co-founders of the Chinese-origin blockchain project NEO. The core issue is a lack of financial transparency within the NEO Foundation.
Zhang, who had left NEO years ago and officially returned in September, accused Da of maintaining a "black box" of assets. He claims Da has sole control over the Foundation's non-token assets and lacks a proper audit mechanism. Zhang also alleged that Da was using NEO's resources to develop a separate project, EON, which prompted his return.
The dispute escalated in December when Zhang publicly demanded financial disclosures and unilaterally announced that Da would be removed from NEO mainnet affairs to focus on sidechain and new project development starting January 1, 2026.
In response, Da countered that Zhang actually controls the majority of the ecosystem's funds (NEO/GAS tokens) and consensus node voting power. He accused Zhang of delaying the transfer of these funds to a multi-signature wallet for years. Da committed to releasing a financial report for 2025 by Q1 2026.
marsbit01/01 02:54
