Neo Founder Rift: Da Hongfei Accused of Failing to Fulfill Financial Disclosure Promise, Erik Accused of Embezzling Foundation Funds

On December 31, Erik Zhang—Neo co-founder and core developer—accused NEO founder Da Hongfei of failing to fulfill financial disclosure commitments. Zhang stated a recent phone call yielded a clear agreement: starting January 1, 2026, Da will focus solely on operating and developing NeoX and SpoonOS, and will no longer be involved in any Neo mainnet matters. He also called on Da to immediately publish a complete, verifiable financial report to the community, including a detailed list of all assets managed by the Neo Foundation (NF) and a breakdown of all expenses—addressing longstanding community concerns over transparency and governance. In response, Da Hongfei claimed Zhang controls the vast majority of Neo funds, influences consensus node voting, and is willing to hijack agreements at the expense of the community and token holders. Da added he has repeatedly urged Zhang to transfer NEO/GAS tokens from personal custody to the foundation’s multisig address (while Da retains key holder status), but Zhang consistently finds excuses to delay the process.