On April 17, 2026, Neo co-founder Da Hongfei presented a plan to restructure the Neo Foundation after revealing assets totaling 461 million dollars. According to the first official financial report since 2019, the organization aims to professionalize its treasury through a new entity in the Cayman Islands to overcome years of operational paralysis and lack of transparency. This move addresses the need to modernize one of the oldest projects in the sector.
The 461 million dollars in assets under management figure surprises a market that considered Neo a stagnant project. Currently, the foundation and its development arm, Neo Global Development, control approximately 41 million NEO, representing 31.3% of the total supply under single-signature control. This concentration of power has been the central friction point between Hongfei and the other co-founder, Erik Zhang. The new restructuring proposal seeks to implement mandatory multi-signature wallets for liquid assets such as Bitcoin, Ether, and stablecoins.
Unlike most modern decentralized autonomous organizations born under on-chain governance frameworks, Neo carries a foundational structure from 2014. The structural impact analysis reveals that the “Giveback II” plan intends to return 49.5 million NEO tokens to the community gradually. This movement is crucial: Neo today holds one of the largest treasuries relative to its active market capitalization, exceeding the reserve ratio of established DeFi protocols. If executed, institutional selling pressure would transform into a controlled distribution mechanism.
Da Hongfei’s proposal seeks to decentralize the Neo treasury
The internal conflict has escalated to the point of public confrontation. Erik Zhang maintains that moving the headquarters to the Cayman Islands is a cosmetic change that evades accountability for past management of the ecosystem.
Response to Da Hongfei’s Proposal
1. Neo’s legitimacy should be grounded in on-chain verifiability
In the blockchain world, addresses are the easiest thing to verify and the most trustworthy. Anything that can be proven by addresses should be proven by addresses first. Assets,…
— Erik Zhang (@erikzhang) April 12, 2026
Zhang argues that the proposed system still relies on third-party attestations instead of addresses directly verifiable on the blockchain. For the technical director, excluding founders from the board for 24 months deprives the project of necessary oversight during the transition to Neo X.
Governance in the crypto space is undergoing a legitimacy crisis that is not exclusive to Neo. Projects like Aave have faced similar tensions between founders and the community over grant control. In this context, Neo’s attempt to adopt a research-based influence model of management seems to mimic the Ethereum Foundation standard. However, the difference lies in the fact that Neo possesses a much more rigid corporate structure attempting to flex after five years of financial silence.
The technical viability of Neo X, now positioned as a network for artificial intelligence agents, depends on this reform being approved. The proposal demands the creation of a five-member board and an independent supervisor with veto power over violations of the bylaws. It is a robust legal architecture seeking to attract institutional projects that currently avoid Neo due to its opaque governance. The Asian market, historically the driver of this asset, has diminished in weight following regulatory bans, forcing a global reorientation.
The success of this transition will be measured by the ability to attract developers for Neo co-founder proposes $461M treasury overhaul to end ‘trust me’ governance in a competitive environment. The next 24 months will determine if Neo manages to become an ecosystem governed by institutional rules or if it remains under the informal control of its creators. The key milestone will be the publication of the first audited financial report under the new legal structure in 2027.
This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice.
