Neo Foundation Faces Leadership Tensions Ahead of Zhang’s Jan. 1 Focus Shift

• Neo co-founder Erik Zhang accuses his colleague Da Hongfei of failure to release a verifiable financial report of the Neo Foundation.
• Da Hongfei counters the accusation, stating that Zhang has full control of Neo’s treasury.

Neo Foundation is facing a major leadership tension between two co-founders, Erik Zhang and Da Hongfei. The now-public dispute between the co-founders comes ahead of Hongfei moving from Neo mainnet-related work to focus on side projects beginning January 1, 2026. Neo Co-founders Fight Over Multisig Keys According to reports from Wu Blockchain, Zhang claims Hongfei has failed to provide full, verifiable financial disclosure for the Neo Foundation.  Hence, he is demanding an immediate, detailed report on all assets and expenditures of the Foundation.  Zhang also noted Hongfei will step back from Neo mainnet-related work starting January 1, 2026. This will allow Hongfei to focus solely on side projects such as NeoX and SpoonOS. In response to the claims, Hongfei has countered Zhang in an X post. He argued that Zhang has shown no hesitation in hijacking the Neo protocol at the expense of the community and token holders.

NEO Leadership Tussle | Source: Wu Blockchain on X

Hongfei claimed Zhang controls the super majority of the Neo treasury and dictates the voting of consensus nodes. As a result, he thinks it is ironic that Zhang is requesting financial disclosure from him. He further noted that no single person should have such centralized control over a blockchain project. Hongfei claimed he had repeatedly asked Zhang to transfer the NEO/GAS tokens from his personal custody to the Neo Foundation multisig addresses. However, Zhang has consistently delayed this process with excuses. Hongfei added that he avoided bringing the news publicly before now to protect community confidence and give space for an orderly resolution.  He said that silence was also born of the hope that Zhang would honor his promise. With Zhang still stalling, Hongfei regrets not speaking out earlier. Still, he assured community members of an end-of-2025 NF/NGD financial report release in the first half of 2026. He also promised to share preliminary figures as they become available. However, he urged community members not to view the future report as a concession to accusations from Zhang. Instead, he claimed the report would bring to light full disclosure of the resources. Da Hongfei Pledges Commitment to Neo Moving on, Hongfei emphasized that he remains committed to the Neo community and Foundation. He said he would continue to support Neo’s long-term development and governance. The dispute between Zhang and Hongfei is just one among recent feuds by leaders in the crypto space. In a previous update, we examined that the Ethereum Foundation faced scrutiny following calls for leadership changes from community members.  Former Geth lead developer Péter Szilágyi also accused the Ethereum Foundation of being controlled by a small inner circle. For emphasis, Neo is an open-source blockchain platform focused on building a smart economy by digitizing assets and identities using smart contracts.  As we discussed earlier, Neo integrated ChainGPT’s AI toolkit to boost Web3 development across Neo N3 and Neo X.