Veteran Chinese Public Chain NEO's Two Founders in a Feud, Financial Opacity as the Core Reason

marsbitPublished on 2026-01-01Last updated on 2026-01-01

Abstract

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.

It's unexpected that a veteran domestic public chain could come to such a day. What's even more lamentable is that top domestic AI projects like Manus, Kimi, and Minimax have had major news for two consecutive days—either being acquired for billions of dollars or raising hundreds of millions in funding—while this old-school public chain has started a feud.

As it stands, the two co-founders of the NEO public chain, founded in 2014, Zhang Zhengwen (Erik Zhang) and Da Hongfei, have essentially completely fallen out, continuing to trade barbs on X. Based on their statements and publicly available information online, let's try to figure out what exactly happened between the two founders of this veteran public chain.

Financial Black Box

Actually, Zhang Zhengwen had left NEO a few years ago, which he confirmed on his own Twitter, and then officially returned in September this year. The trigger for this feud was in November. According to community news and public information, Zhang Zhengwen, as the technical core, encountered obstacles when seeking to obtain the detailed financial report and fund flow of the Neo Foundation.

Subsequently, Zhang Zhengwen accused the Neo Foundation of long-term opaque operations, with its financial status resembling a "black box." He pointed out that Da Hongfei has long solely controlled the foundation's assets other than NEO/GAS tokens, and there is a lack of a complete, auditable disclosure mechanism.

In today's exchange of accusations, we also discovered the reason for Zhang Zhengwen's previous departure. He said that Da Hongfei approached him alone, stating that it was inefficient for the two of them to be responsible for NEO, so he chose to temporarily withdraw from management to "improve efficiency." However, he found that Da Hongfei was using NEO's resources to develop an independent public chain project, EON. This prompted him to return and intervene in the foundation's governance.

In community discussions in November, Zhang Zhengwen stated that NEO had previously relied on hackathons to create "false prosperity," with no real users, and many hackathon projects disappeared after receiving awards.

Escalation of Conflict

In December, Zhang Zhengwen publicly issued a statement demanding that Da Hongfei fulfill the financial disclosure obligations promised since December 9th. More explosively, Zhang Zhengwen unilaterally announced that, according to a previous phone agreement between them, starting January 1, 2026, Da Hongfei will no longer participate in NEO mainnet affairs and will instead focus on the development and operation of the sidechain NeoX and the new project SpoonOS.

Da Hongfei (Da Shu) responded immediately, stating that Zhang Zhengwen actually controls the vast majority of the funds in the NEO ecosystem (including the core assets NEO and GAS tokens) and dominates the voting rights of consensus nodes. He also accused Zhang Zhengwen of delaying the transfer of funds to the foundation's multi-signature address (Multisig) for years under various pretexts (such as waiting for the completion of the N3 migration).

Da Hongfei承诺将在 2026 年第一季度发布 2025 年末的财务报告,并会提前分享初步数据。

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