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

On December 31, Erik Zhang, co-founder and core developer of Neo, accused NEO founder Da Hongfei of failing to fulfill his financial disclosure commitments. Zhang stated that, according to a clear agreement reached in a recent phone conversation, Da Hongfei would focus on the operation and development of NeoX and SpoonOS from January 1, 2026, and would no longer participate in any matters related to the Neo mainnet. Zhang called on Da Hongfei to immediately release 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, to address the community's long-standing legitimate concerns regarding transparency and governance. NEO founder Da Hongfei responded by stating that Erik Zhang controls the vast majority of Neo's funds, influences consensus node voting, and unhesitatingly hijacks the protocol at the expense of the community and token holders. He had previously urged Erik to transfer NEO/GAS tokens from his personal custody to the foundation's multi-signature address—while retaining the key holder status himself. However, Erik Zhang consistently made excuses to delay this process.