The NEO project's treasury, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, has been managed through personal wallets with little oversight, sparking concerns about the lack of formal governance. According to co-founder Da Hongfei, approximately 85% of the treasury is controlled by Erik Zhang, the project's other co-founder, with single-signature authority.

This has raised concerns about the concentration of power and the potential risks associated with it. The native NEO and GAS tokens held by Zhang are currently valued between $200 million and $250 million, exceeding the project's current market capitalization of $197 million.

The two co-founders have been engaged in a public dispute since December, with each proposing rival governance plans. Hongfei's plan, published on GitHub, calls for the establishment of an independent five-member board, the replacement of the current two-founder governance structure, and the redistribution of approximately 26 million NEO and 40 million GAS tokens to tokenholders.

In contrast, Zhang's proposal seeks to maintain the current governance structure, with himself remaining on the board, and calls for a formal investigation into historical asset management. The investigation would aim to address potential corruption, improper asset transfers, and concealment of public assets.

Hongfei has dismissed these allegations, stating that there is no evidence of corruption or misuse of funds. The dispute has sparked a debate about the need for governance reform, with some observers noting that the project's treasury holds approximately $460 million in assets, roughly double the project's market value, while the token has declined by 98% from its 2018 peak. The treasury is split between two entities: the native NEO and GAS tokens, controlled by Zhang, and the non-token assets, including bitcoin, ether, stablecoins, and fund-of-fund investments, managed by NGD, the entity run by Hongfei. The non-token assets have grown to over $200 million, driven largely by the appreciation of BTC and ETH holdings accumulated through early-stage investment returns.

Hongfei has framed his proposal as a form of mutual disarmament, where both he and Zhang would relinquish control over the assets. However, the success of this proposal depends on Zhang's cooperation, and it remains uncertain whether he will agree to transfer the single-signature token holdings to a multi-signature lock address.