One person holds the keys to $200 million of a project’s crypto His co-founder says that has to end

For years $NEO’s treasury was held under an unusual setup for most financial institutions hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto assets were controlled by personal wallets, with no multisig protection and little formal oversight.

That person, according to co-founder Da Hongfei, is Erik Zhang, $NEO’s other co-founder and the architect of its core protocol.

Da told an interviewer ‘Eric is the single signature of around 85%, and controls it by Eric alone. It had never been transferred to anyone or any multi-sig, nor was it ever renamed “It”. Zhang’s native $NEO and $GAS tokens are worth $200 million to $250 million, Da estimated. This is more than $NEO’s current $197 million market capitalization of .

For his part, Zhang has accused Da of separate problems. The two founders have been presenting those disputes publicly since December, when they were first broadcast in public.

The fight has since produced rival governance plans and an unsuccessful mediation effort in Hong Kong.

In GitHub, Da posted his restructuring proposal on April 9 to the site. In its call to “redomicilate” the Neo Foundation (from Singapore to the Cayman Islands), replacing the two-founder governance with an independent five-member board, removing both founders from that board for 24 months and distributing about 26 million $NEO and 40 million dollars $GAS to tokenholders.

Zhang’s counter-proposal called staying on the board keeping the Foundation in Singapore, not move it to the Cayman Islands.

Almost as pointedly, Zhang’s proposal calls for a formal investigation of historical asset management including measures against potential corruption, improper asset transfers and concealment of public assets.

But Da flatly rejected those provisions, citing them as being the case of Da. I think it’s a very blunt and empty accusation,” he said. paraphrasing “There is no corruption, no misuse of money. Paraphrasing ‘It is an important part of my life to be paraphrased.

Observers of s, however, say the numbers are quite sharp. $NEO’s treasury has $460 million in assets, roughly double the $197 million market value of this project; 98% from its 2018 peak.

Mutual disarmament

The first comprehensive disclosure since 2020, $NEO’s FY2025 financial report revealed more than 1,100 $BTC, over $100 million in stablecoins and cash, a portfolio of venture investments including an unliquidated stake in Binance.

In two halves, Da smashed the treasury into one of its own words “D broke the word from his mouth.” Zhang is largely under the single-signature control of his first — the native $NEO and $GAS tokens. NGD, the entity Da runs, is responsible for managing the second, bitcoin, ether, stablecoins, fund-of-fund investments and bank balances.

Those non-token assets, which have been relatively modest, have gone on to over $200 million (largely thanks to the appreciation of its $BTC and ETH holdings gained through early-stage investment returns).

The result is an almost equal treasury split between two people who are no longer speaking productively, each holding leverage over the other, neither willing to move first.

Da framed his proposal as mutual disarmament.

The $BTC and stablecoins, more than $200 million in assets will be largely under the control of ND — most of it being controlled by its parent company “NGD.” Eric, said he will lose his personal control over most of the $NEO tokens and “and Eric” is going to be left with no money.

“Basically, me and Eric need to sacrifice our individual control over assets. I think that’s the fundamental change.”

He said he’s willing, but doesn’t know if Zhang is.

Zhang’s cooperation is the most critical step of Da’restructuring, which means that it has shifted the single-signature token holdings to a multisig lock address. In an April 10 AMA, Da committed to one-to-three month timeline in which he adhered to.

Asked what happens if Zhang refuses, Da was candid.

I think the answer should be from community itself if there is one person holding about half of a crypto native token and not willing to hand over to’multi-sig, constitutional governance’.

CoinDesk reached out to Erik Zhang for comment and had not heard back by time of publication

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