For years, the NEO project's treasury was controlled through personal wallets with minimal oversight, a situation that co-founder Da Hongfei claims must change. According to Da, his fellow co-founder Erik Zhang holds around 85% of the project's crypto assets, worth between $200 million and $250 million, with single-signature control. Da has proposed a restructuring plan that would introduce multi-sig protection, an independent five-member board, and bar both founders from the board for 24 months.
Zhang, however, has countered with a proposal that includes a formal investigation into historical asset management and allows him to remain on the board. The two co-founders have been at odds since December, with their dispute spilling into the public sphere. Da's plan, published on GitHub, aims to redistribute roughly 26 million NEO and 40 million GAS tokens to tokenholders and relocate the Neo Foundation from Singapore to the Cayman Islands.
Zhang's counter-proposal seeks to keep the Foundation in Singapore and maintain his position on the board. The conflict has led to a stalemate, with the project's treasury split between the two co-founders, each holding significant leverage over the other. Da has framed his proposal as a form of mutual disarmament, where both he and Zhang would relinquish control over the assets.
The outcome remains uncertain, with the community's response potentially determining the project's future.