Long-standing domestic public blockchain NEO sees feud between two co-founders, with opaque finances as the core reason
It's unexpected to see even the long-standing domestic public chain having such a day. What's even more lamentable is that the domestic top AI projects Manus, Kimi, and Minimax have had consecutive heavyweight news for two days in a row. Either they were acquired for tens of billions of dollars, or they received billions in financing. However, the long-standing public chain has surprisingly started to have a falling out.
Currently, it seems that the two co-founders of the NEO public chain established in 2014, Zhang Zhongwen (Erik Zhang) and Da Hongfei, have basically completely fallen out, and they are still continuously bickering on Weibo. Based on the statements of both parties and public information online, an attempt has been made to figure out what exactly happened between the two founders of this long-standing public chain.
Financial Black Box
In fact, Zhang Zhongwen had already left NEO a few years ago, which he also confirmed on his own Twitter, and then officially returned in September this year. The catalyst for this falling out was in November when, according to community sources and public records, Zhang Zhongwen, as the technical core, encountered obstacles when seeking to obtain a detailed financial report and fund flow of the Neo Foundation.

Following this, Zhang Zhongwen accused the Neo Foundation of long-term opaque operation, with the asset situation resembling a "black box." He pointed out that Da Hongfei had long been in sole control of the Foundation's assets other than NEO/GAS tokens, and there was a lack of a comprehensive, auditable disclosure mechanism.
In today's back-and-forth between the two sides, we also discovered the reason why Zhang Zhongwen had left before. He said that Da Hongfei had approached him alone, saying that the two of them were inefficient in managing NEO, so he chose to temporarily step down from the management team in order to "increase efficiency." However, he found that Da Hongfei was using NEO's resources to develop an independent public chain project, EON. This also prompted his return and involvement in Foundation governance.
In a community discussion in November, Zhang Zhongwen had previously stated that NEO had relied on hackathons to create a "false prosperity" before, with no real users, and many hackathon projects disappeared after winning awards.
Escalation of Conflict
In December, Zhang Zhongwen publicly released a statement demanding that Da Hongfei fulfill his commitment to financial disclosure starting from December 9. Even more explosively, Zhang Zhongwen unilaterally announced that, according to a previous verbal agreement between the two, starting from January 1, 2026, Da Hongfei would no longer be involved in NEO MainNet affairs but would instead focus on the NeoX sidechain and the development and operation of the new project SpoonOS.
Da Hongfei promptly responded, stating that Zhang Zhongwen effectively controlled the vast majority of the funds in the NEO ecosystem (including core assets NEO and GAS tokens) and dominated the voting rights of consensus nodes. He also accused Zhang Zhongwen of delaying the transfer of funds to the Foundation's multisig address for years under various pretexts (such as waiting for the N3 migration to complete).
Dahongfei has committed to releasing the year-end financial report for 2025 in the first quarter of 2026 and will provide a preview of the data in advance.
You may also like

March 3rd Key Market Info Discrepancy - A Must-Read! | Alpha Morning Post

IOSG: Making Probability an Asset, Forecasting Market Intelligence Agent

The US’s Back-Channel Helper in Attacking Iran, How Evil is Palantir

Key Market Intelligence on March 3rd, how much did you miss?

Interpreting the Anthropic vs. War Department Conflict: What Does Trump Intend to Do?

Nasdaq Moves In, Predicts Market Has Reached Mainstream Inflection Point

After a 48-hour ban, Claude reached the top of the App Store

If this is the beginning of the triple halving, what are top investors saying about what to expect?

After Iran's Political Risk Rises, Cryptocurrency Sees Massive Outflow

Pantera Capital Partner: The Financial Trajectory of AI Agents

In the next 5 years, Vitalik will scale Ethereum like this

Sam Altman and the End of the World Capitalism

Wall Street Rings Inflation Alarm Bells Amid Iran Tensions, What Does It Mean for Cryptocurrency?

Qwen Open Source Model Enters Mobile, Nasdaq Tests Water Prediction Market, What's the Overseas Crypto Community Talking About Today?

MegaETH Co-founder: 48 Hours After Escaping Dubai, I Reassess the Entire Crypto Scene

Morning Report | Strategy increased its holdings by 3,015 bitcoins last week; BitMine increased its holdings by 50,928 ETH last week; Vitalik elaborated on the Ethereum execution layer roadmap

Why is it said that there are structural opportunities in encrypted AI?
