Zach Anderson
Apr 17, 2026 15:00
Da Hongfei’s plan would return 49.5M NEO tokens to the group and ban each founders from the board for twenty-four months, however co-founder Erik Zhang is pushing again.
Neo co-founder Da Hongfei has unveiled a radical governance overhaul that may return practically 50 million NEO tokens to the group and bar each founders from board positions for 2 years—a direct response to what he calls years of “belief me” governance that left one among crypto’s oldest networks successfully paralyzed.
The proposal comes alongside Neo’s first public monetary disclosure since 2019, revealing roughly $461 million in belongings held throughout the Neo Basis and Neo World Improvement on the finish of 2025.
What the Restructuring Would Change
The plan would relocate the inspiration to the Cayman Islands, set up a five-member board with an unbiased Supervisor empowered to dam bylaw violations, and impose a 24-month cooling-off interval stopping both Hongfei or co-founder Erik Zhang from serving on governance our bodies.
Maybe extra considerably, the “Giveback II” initiative would return 49.5 million reserved NEO tokens to the group. At present, the inspiration and NGD management roughly 41 million NEO—about 31.3% of complete provide—primarily beneath single-signature management.
Underneath the brand new framework, the inspiration would function with obligatory annual monetary stories, onchain attestations for big transfers, and absolutely disclosed multi-signature wallets for BTC, ETH, stablecoins, and different liquid holdings.
Zhang Fires Again
Co-founder Erik Zhang is not shopping for it. He argues the proposal grounds Neo’s legitimacy in offchain authorized constructions whereas nonetheless leaving room for “opaque third-party attestations” slightly than instantly verifiable onchain addresses.
His greater concern: the 24-month board exclusion strips Neo of important technical oversight at a important juncture. Zhang has characterised the Cayman restructuring as a “beauty shell change” that sidesteps historic accountability points.
The general public conflict exposes deep divisions which have apparently existed for years, with the co-founders now airing their disagreements on social media and thru competing public statements.
A Broader Governance Disaster
Neo’s inside battle mirrors governance struggles enjoying out throughout decentralized finance. Aave has weathered its personal dispute between the founder-aligned Aave Chan Initiative and different stakeholders over how a lot energy entrenched service suppliers ought to maintain inside DAOs.
In the meantime, World Liberty Monetary—the Trump family-linked venture—drew sharp criticism this week from stakeholders together with Tron’s Justin Solar over proposed token unlock schedules and discretionary treasury management.
Can Neo Reclaim Relevance?
Hongfei has been blunt about Neo’s present place. The person base is “not the place it was within the 2017 to 2021 cycle,” he acknowledged, with exercise now concentrated amongst long-term holders. The Chinese language market that after drove progress has contracted beneath Beijing’s crypto bans, and Neo missed the DeFi growth whereas delayed on its N3 improve.
His pitch for revival facilities on positioning Neo X as an “agent-first” blockchain optimized for autonomous AI brokers—betting that the subsequent decade of onchain exercise will probably be pushed extra by machines transacting on behalf of people than by direct person interplay.
Whether or not that thesis holds, and whether or not the governance restructuring really occurs, ought to turn out to be clearer over the subsequent 12 to 24 months. Hongfei has indicated he’d reassess his personal board ambitions if Neo fails to finish the restructuring and appeal to significant AI-native improvement inside that window.
Picture supply: Shutterstock
