On January 1, news reported that NEO's two major founders, Erik Zhang and Da Hongfei, accused each other of monopolizing financial power and lacking transparency. Erik Zhang stated that he will return to the Neo mainnet for comprehensive management to safeguard the core rights of NEO/GAS holders. Meanwhile, Erik Zhang disclosed the current NEO governance structure and the status of accounts under management.

Erik Zhang said that currently, the vast majority of NEO and GAS assets of the Neo Foundation are publicly distributed across 21 initial node addresses and one multi-signature wallet. Previously, during Da Hongfei's request for him to step down from foundation management, approximately 8 million NEO/GAS tokens were transferred to multiple multi-signature addresses designated by Da Hongfei as requested. Apart from the aforementioned transparent NEO/GAS, all auxiliary assets held by the Neo Foundation (including but not limited to BTC, ETH, and other ecosystem project tokens) are currently under Da Hongfei's personal actual control. Erik Zhang stated that these assets have remained in a "black box" state for many years, and Da Hongfei has yet to provide any verifiable financial statements, asset lists, or audit certificates.