One person holds the keys to $200 million of a project’s crypto. His co-founder says that has to end
Co-founders Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang have conflicting restructuring plans, Da wants independent governance and multi-sig protection; Zhang wants accountability investigations and to remain on the board.
What to know:
- NEO co-founder Erik Zhang holds $200-250 million in crypto assets in a personal wallet with no multi-signature security or formal oversight.
- Co-founders Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang have conflicting restructuring plans, Da wants independent governance and multi-sig protection; Zhang wants accountability investigations and to remain on the board.
- NEO’s treasury holds ~$460 million in assets, roughly double the project’s $197 million market value, while the token has dropped 98% from its 2018 peak.
“Around 85% is controlled by Eric alone with single signature,” Da said in an interview. “It had never been transferred to any individual or any multi-sig.” The native NEO and GAS tokens Zhang holds are currently worth between $200 million and $250 million, Da estimated. That’s more than NEO’s current $197 million market capitalization.
Zhang, for his part, has accused Da of separate problems. The two founders have been airing those disputes in public since December.
The fight has since produced rival governance plans and an unsuccessful mediation effort in Hong Kong.
Da published his restructuring proposal on GitHub on April 9. It calls for redomiciling the Neo Foundation from Singapore to the Cayman Islands, replacing the current two-founder governance with an independent five-member board, barring both founders from that board for 24 months, and redistributing roughly 26 million NEO and 40 million GAS to tokenholders.
