NNT’s Dylan Grabowski talks governance, ecosystem strategy in NeoPod’s first AMA
NeoPod hosted its first neighborhood AMA on June 10, that includes NNT author and editor Dylan Grabowski, in a wide-ranging text-based Discord session overlaying Neo’s present state, the continuing governance dispute between co-founders, and what the ecosystem wants to maneuver ahead.
The occasion marks a brand new chapter for the NeoPod 2.0 refresh, which relaunched earlier this 12 months with a concentrate on high quality content material creation and deeper neighborhood engagement. Grabowski, who has been with NNT since 2018 and in addition hosts The Sensible Financial system Podcast and serves as a GrantShares and Neo Council voting member, was candid all through the session.
A fractured ecosystem, however one nonetheless combating
Grabowski supplied an unvarnished evaluation of the place Neo stands. He described a mission now contending with a public feud between its two co-founders, diminished on-chain exercise, and a neighborhood being pulled in several instructions.
“Neo is sitting on a $400+ million treasury, and each the founders are accusing each other of wrongdoing,” Grabowski mentioned. “Truthfully, it’s a horrible look.”
However he was fast to counter the pessimism, pointing to Neo’s core growth expertise, its lively developer communities, and a grassroots layer that continues to construct. He pointed to neighborhood initiatives together with World of Parts, Neo Purple Tablet, NeoIgnite, and Raijin Protocol, together with content material creators producing materials in English, Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic.
He reserved specific reward for Neo’s core builders, naming Jimmy, Alibaba, Anna, Vitor, Roman, Igor, and Shargon particularly:
“Neo core builders legitimately are a number of the smartest folks I’ve ever met in my life. With out their ardour and dedication, Neo would’ve stopped functioning years in the past.”
He famous that when neither founder was actively main, the core staff found out what to concentrate on independently and stored the mission shifting ahead.
‘Crew Neo’ – a governance reset
On the dispute between Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang, Grabowski positioned himself firmly as “Crew Neo” moderately than aligning with both founder.
“I don’t have ‘a aspect’ on this argument, solely what’s greatest for customers, builders, and the ecosystem,” he mentioned. His stance is formalized in a governance alignment proposal submitted as a GitHub pull request, which outlines two central suggestions: a brand new board of administrators constructed largely of achieved outsiders, and a consolidated multi-signature treasury.
Grabowski argued that the present association, the place every founder controls signing entry to roughly half of Neo’s belongings, is untenable:
“This isn’t how a profitable blockchain ecosystem is managed.”
He acknowledged that present ecosystem leaders could carry an excessive amount of historical past and potential blind spots to fill board positions, and advocated for outsiders who can convey recent perspective.
Stablecoins, RWAs, and AI brokers as the trail ahead
Grabowski outlined a strategic imaginative and prescient centered on two pillars: stablecoins and real-world belongings within the close to time period, and AI brokers for longer-term relevance.
He revealed that he gave an in-person presentation to Da, Neo International Improvement, the Neo Basis, and the Neo neighborhood in Hong Kong in October 2023, pitching the onboarding of USDC and USDT and courting RWA issuers.
“Think about if we’d severely gone after Tether/Circle and RWA issuers again then, the state of Neo will surely look totally different than as we speak,” he mentioned.
Citing knowledge from rwa.xyz, he famous that 263.83 million wallets presently maintain stablecoins throughout a US $300 billion market, with 900,000 wallets holding RWAs price US $360 billion.
“Stablecoins and RWAs are usually not attractive. They received’t convey thousands and thousands of customers to Neo. However they may enshrine capital on our chain, and produce long-term companions.”
On AI brokers, Grabowski pointed to a future the place autonomous brokers transact on-chain extra incessantly than people, arguing that crypto’s permissionless infrastructure makes it a pure match for brokers that lack the id documentation wanted for conventional monetary rails. He famous that Neo’s SpoonOS is already catering to this vertical.
Flamingo’s decline
Grabowski addressed Flamingo Finance, which laid off its whole workers earlier in 2026 and publicly disclosed the state of its FUSD debt in April.
“Once we look again on Neo’s historical past, letting Flamingo fall will in all probability be one of many greatest tarnishes on the ecosystem’s observe document,” he mentioned.
Neo X gaining floor
Grabowski acknowledged a shift in his views on Neo X adoption. 4 months earlier, he mentioned he would have argued that N3 was the chain everybody would use. Present knowledge tells a distinct story – Neo X is constantly recording 2,500 to three,000 day by day transactions in comparison with Neo N3’s 500 to 2,000.
He attributed the uptick to the brand new Legacy-to-Neo X migration window, rising alternate assist for Neo X belongings, and SpoonOS growth oriented predominantly towards the EVM-compatible chain. Nonetheless, he expressed warning, noting that Neo had beforehand seen the belief that builders would come just because the know-how was obtainable fail through the N3 period.
The perfect end result, he prompt, is competitors between the 2 chains.
“When the builders of and on each chains begin having starvation to win over the others, then all of us win,” he mentioned.
Regardless of the challenges, Grabowski struck an optimistic closing observe, pointing to institutional adoption of blockchain, the energy of constructing throughout bear markets, and Neo’s neighborhood resilience as causes for confidence.
“A blockchain ecosystem is barely destined for failure when nobody desires to stay round and battle anymore,” he mentioned. “And Neo, for its flaws, nonetheless has a neighborhood that’s sticking round and combating for our future.”
The complete AMA befell within the NeoPod Discord server.
