Co-Founder Holds Keys to $200 Million in Crypto, Sparking Governance Dispute

For years, the NEO project's treasury was controlled through personal wallets with no multisig protections, a setup that would be unusual for most financial institutions. According to co-founder Da Hongfei, Erik Zhang, the project's other co-founder, holds around 85% of the assets, worth between $200 million and $250 million, with single signature control. Da estimated that the native NEO and GAS tokens Zhang holds are currently worth more than NEO's $197 million market capitalization. The two founders have been publicly airing their disputes since December, resulting in rival governance plans and an unsuccessful mediation effort. Da's proposal, published on GitHub, calls for the Neo Foundation to be redomiciled from Singapore to the Cayman Islands, replacing the current two-founder governance with an independent five-member board, and redistributing roughly 26 million NEO and 40 million GAS to tokenholders. In contrast, Zhang's counter-proposal suggests staying on the board and keeping the Foundation in Singapore. Zhang's proposal also calls for a formal investigation into historical asset management, including provisions to address potential corruption and improper asset transfers. Da dismissed these provisions, stating that there is no corruption or misuse of funds. The numbers, however, seem stark, with NEO's treasury holding ~$460 million in assets, roughly double the project's market value, while the token has dropped 98% from its 2018 peak. The treasury is split almost evenly between two people who are no longer speaking productively, each holding leverage over the other. Da framed his proposal as mutual disarmament, where both he and Zhang would sacrifice their individual control over assets. Da's restructuring depends entirely on Zhang's cooperation, and he committed to a one-to-three month timeline. If Zhang refuses, Da stated that the community should decide the next course of action.