NEO’s treasury is reported at approximately $460 million in assets per its FY2025 financial report, including more than 1,100 BTC, over $100 million in stablecoins and cash, and venture investments. That reported treasury value is more than double the project’s market capitalization, which stands at about $197 million. The situation has prompted a governance dispute centered on control of those assets between co-founders Erik Zhang and Da Hongfei, with Zhang described as controlling around 85% of the treasury via a single signature.
NEO’s FY2025 financial report lists the composition of the project’s treasury, including more than 1,100 BTC, over $100 million held in stablecoins and cash, and a portfolio of venture investments. The report specifically identifies an unliquidated stake in Binance among the venture holdings. The document records the treasury as a mix of cryptocurrency, stable assets, and venture positions.
The report values the total treasury at approximately $460 million. That reported treasury value is roughly double the project’s market capitalization, which is stated at about $197 million. The report also notes that NEO’s token has fallen about 98% from its 2018 peak.
These figures are presented in NEO’s FY2025 financial report. The report is the source for the listed treasury composition and the reported total valuation.
NEO’s treasury was held in personal wallets without multisig protections and with limited formal oversight. Reporting states that Erik Zhang controls around 85% of the treasury with a single signature. Zhang also holds native NEO and GAS tokens valued between $200 million and $250 million. That token holding exceeds the project’s current market capitalization of $197 million. These custody and ownership arrangements are central to the project’s governance and control issues.
The treasury is described as almost evenly split between two co-founders, Erik Zhang and Da Hongfei, who are reported to be no longer speaking productively. The governance arrangements lacked formal multisig custody and institutional oversight mechanisms. Those custody and split arrangements have produced a governance dispute centered on control of the treasury assets. The reported concentration of control and the founders’ lack of productive cooperation are presented as core elements of the conflict.
The governance and control issues therefore revolve around custodial arrangements and the distribution of treasury assets among the two founders. The situation has been presented in the project’s reporting.
On April 9, Da Hongfei proposed a restructuring of the Neo Foundation that would redomicile the foundation from Singapore to the Cayman Islands, replace the two-founder governance model with an independent five-member board, and bar both founders from serving on the board for 24 months. His proposal also calls for the redistribution of roughly 26 million NEO and 40 million GAS to tokenholders. The proposal frames these measures as institutional changes to governance and asset distribution. The plan would shift governance authority away from the current co-founder structure.
Erik Zhang’s counter-proposal calls for him and the existing governance to remain on the board and for the Neo Foundation to remain domiciled in Singapore. Zhang’s proposal requests a formal investigation into historical asset management, alleging potential corruption, improper asset transfers, and concealment of public assets. The counter-proposal therefore combines a bid to maintain current leadership with demands for review of past asset handling. The two proposals present directly opposing remedies to governance concerns.
Da has publicly denied allegations of corruption, stating, “There is no corruption, no misuse of funds.”
The proposals reflect a dispute over control of the foundation and its assets, with one side seeking structural replacement and redistribution and the other seeking investigation while retaining current governance. Both proposals were issued publicly and are positioned as alternative responses to the governance dispute.
The proposals remain in dispute. Both founders have issued formal plans and statements on governance and asset management.
The dispute centers on control of NEO’s sizable treasury and the custody arrangements that concentrated authority in founders’ hands, creating contested asset control. It pits competing governance models — Da Hongfei’s restructuring plan calling for an independent board and redistributions versus Erik Zhang’s counterproposal to retain current leadership and seek an investigation — against one another. At the core are conflicts over who should govern the foundation and how the treasury’s assets should be managed and distributed.
