Neo

Neo is an open-source smart-contract blockchain. Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang co-founded the project as Antshares in 2014. Its source code became public in July 2015, MainNet launched in October 2016, and Antshares was renamed Neo in 2017. Official Neo history

Neo mark via Wikimedia Commons. It is marked public domain as a simple geometric design; trademark rights may still apply.

Founding and people

• Da Hongfei: co-founder, long associated with strategy, ecosystem development, and external communication; also founder of enterprise-blockchain company Onchain.
• Erik Zhang: co-founder, core developer, and author of the dBFT consensus mechanism; a full dossier has not yet been published here.

Calling Neo a one-person creation would erase Zhang’s technical and co-founder role. Conversely, Onchain, Ontology, Neo Global Development, and the Neo Foundation should not be collapsed into a single legal or governance entity.

Technology and dual tokens

Neo N3 uses delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance. Its on-chain governance has 21 committee members; the seven highest-ranked members also act as consensus nodes. The protocol documentation says elections become effective when more than 20% of NEO participates in voting. Neo governance documentation, dBFT documentation

Token	Primary function	Key constraint
NEO	Governance, voting, and the basis for GAS generation	Maximum supply of 100 million; indivisible
GAS	Payment for network resources and transaction fees	No fixed N3 supply cap; system fees are burned

The initial N3 settings generate five GAS per block: 10% for NEO holders, 10% for committee and consensus nodes, and 80% for voters. This ties economic rewards to participation, while foundation-controlled reserves and low turnout can magnify concentrated influence.

Foundation, development group, and governance boundary

The Neo Foundation provides long-term direction and funding, while Neo Global Development performs much of the development, operations, and ecosystem work. Open-source contributors, consensus nodes, and community groups also build the network. The Foundation is not Da Hongfei’s private company, and project treasury assets are not his personal wallet.

In April 2026, the co-founders published competing restructuring proposals. Da’s proposal described a founder deadlock and advocated transferring founder-managed assets and governance instruments into a more independent and transparent institution, including discussion of a “Giveback II” redistribution of roughly 49.5 million reserved NEO. Zhang published a separate governance-restoration plan. These are public proposals, not proof that either has been implemented or that either founder misappropriated assets. Da’s proposal, Zhang’s proposal

This page records relatively stable history, technology, and people relationships. Market capitalization, treasury valuation, node rosters, and proposal status require dated review.