Neo co-founder proposes Cayman overhaul, returns 49.5M NEO
Da Hongfei proposes redomiciling the Neo Foundation to the Cayman Islands, a five-member board, returning 49.5M reserved NEO and a 24-month founder ban after a $461M disclosure.
Neo co-founder Da Hongfei proposed redomiciling the Neo Foundation to the Cayman Islands and a governance overhaul after the foundation disclosed about $461 million in combined assets at the end of 2025.
The plan, called “Giveback II”, would create a five-member board and an independent Supervisor with power to block bylaw breaches. It would ban either founder from serving on the board or supervisory body for 24 months, return 49.5 million reserved NEO to the community, and move investments managed by Neo Global Development under foundation control.
The proposal requires annual financial reports, onchain attestations for large transfers, and that liquid assets such as Bitcoin, Ether and stablecoins be held in fully disclosed multi-signature wallets. The disclosure shows the foundation and Neo Global Development together control about 41 million NEO, roughly 31.3% of the token supply, with much of it under single-signature control.
Erik Zhang, Neo’s other co-founder, objected to major elements of the plan, arguing a 24-month exclusion of either founder would remove needed technical oversight. He described the Cayman redomicile as cosmetic and raised concerns about relying on third-party attestations instead of direct, verifiable onchain custody.
Hongfei framed the proposal as a break with founder-driven, informal governance and wrote that it would replace ‘trust me’ custody with verifiable financial practices. He cited an influence-through-research approach used by another blockchain founder as an example of reduced operational control.
Hongfei also outlined a technical pivot to what he calls Neo X, an ‘agent-first’ blockchain designed to support autonomous AI agents that transact for users. He set a 12- to 24-month window for completing the restructuring and attracting agent-native projects, and indicated he might seek a board seat if those milestones are not met.
The dispute has drawn attention from users and investors concerned about how older blockchains manage large treasuries and who controls them, and it follows similar governance contests at other decentralized finance projects.
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