Neo founder split: Da Hongfei accused of failing to fulfill financial disclosure commitments, Erik accused of monopolizing the foundation's financial authority

On December 31, Neo co-founder and core developer Erik Zhang issued a statement accusing NEO founder Da Hongfei of failing to fulfill his financial disclosure commitments. Erik Zhang stated that, according to a clear agreement reached during the most recent phone call, starting from January 1, 2026, Da Hongfei will focus on the operations and development of NeoX and SpoonOS, and will no longer participate in any matters related to the Neo mainnet. He called on Da Hongfei to immediately disclose a complete and verifiable financial report to the community, including a detailed list of all assets managed by the Neo Foundation (NF) and a breakdown of all expenditures, in order to address the community’s long-standing concerns about transparency and governance. NEO founder Da Hongfei responded by saying that Erik Zhang controls the vast majority of Neo funds, influences consensus node voting, and has unhesitatingly hijacked the protocol at the expense of the community and token holders. He previously urged Erik to transfer NEO/GAS tokens from his personal custody to a multi-signature address of the foundation—of which he still retains the key holder role. However, Erik Zhang has always found excuses to delay this process.