For several years, the NEO treasury has been managed through an unconventional setup, with hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto assets controlled by personal wallets, lacking multi-signature protections and formal oversight. According to co-founder Da Hongfei, Erik Zhang, the other co-founder and architect of the core protocol, holds approximately 85% of the assets with single-signature control. The native NEO and GAS tokens held by Zhang are currently valued between $200 million and $250 million, exceeding NEO's current market capitalization of $197 million.
The two founders have been publicly disputing since December, resulting in rival governance plans and an unsuccessful mediation effort in Hong Kong. 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 approximately 26 million NEO and 40 million GAS to tokenholders.
In contrast, Zhang's counter-proposal suggests maintaining the Foundation's current location and governance structure, while also calling for a formal investigation into historical asset management. Da has dismissed these allegations, stating that there is no corruption or misuse of funds. The project's treasury holds approximately $460 million in assets, double the project's market value, while the token has dropped 98% from its 2018 peak. The treasury is split between two halves, with the native NEO and GAS tokens under Zhang's single-signature control, and the remaining assets, including bitcoin, ether, and stablecoins, managed by NGD, the entity run by Da.
Da has framed his proposal as a form of mutual disarmament, where both he and Zhang would sacrifice individual control over assets. However, the success of this proposal depends on Zhang's cooperation, and Da has stated that if Zhang refuses, the community should decide the next course of action.