NEO (NEO) Plunge

Neo blockchain co-founders Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang are engaged in a public dispute over financial transparency and governance. Zhang accuses Hongfei of withholding financial reports for years and demands full disclosure of the Neo Foundation's assets and expenditures. He also states that Hongfei will step back from Neo mainnet operations starting January 1, 2026, to focus on side projects. Hongfei counters that Zhang controls the majority of NEO and GAS tokens and has refused to transfer them to multi-signature wallets despite previous agreements. Both claim to act in Neo’s best interests, but the conflict has raised concerns about governance and trust within the community. The disagreement underscores ongoing tensions in the project's management since its rebrand from Antshares in 2017.

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.