General Updates

Neo co-founder Da Hongfei shared a preliminary financial report, which reported holding more than US $430 million in total assets as of year-end 2025. The document also outlined a mandate to allocate all capital exclusively toward strengthening the NEO and GAS assets and Neo ecosystem, including planned strategic purchases of NEO and GAS. The announcement also proposed an expanded community grant program and committed to publishing annual financial reports starting in Q1 2026, with major on-chain addresses disclosed after execution for transparency.

The Neo core development team released Neo‑CLI v3.9.0, marking the first official release since May 2025 and the first since the return of Neo co-founder Erik Zhang. Announced on Jan. 19, the update was scheduled for deployment to the T5 TestNet on Jan. 21, with MainNet activation slated for Feb. 3. This version introduces a wide range of enhancements spanning the protocol, native contracts, and developer tooling, and will require a hard fork. Critical hotfixes were released as v3.9.2 on Jan. 21, and all node operators must upgrade to v3.9.2 or later before the Feb. 3 MainNet fork.

The Neo Council gathered online to address persistent governance and execution hurdles, with the discussion focused on a proposal to streamline decision-making by creating a Strategy and Treasury Board. The meeting was marked by candid reflections, structural critiques, and calls for immediate reform.

Vaulten distributed rewards to the participants who solved new fragments added to the on-chain word-puzzle game.

nDapp released a weekly N3 GAS check-in, noting that network users claimed approximately 63,679 GAS over the past week and that on-chain activity burned about 632 GAS.

NNT hosted a GasBot Trivia round where participants had a chance to compete for a pool of 4 GAS rewards.

Developer Updates

Neo SPCC released NeoGo v0.116.0, a critical update that activates the Faun hard fork on MainNet and TestNet, introduces P2P-level optimizations, and resolves a state synchronization bug introduced in the previous release. The update is fully compatible with the C# node version 3.9.2.

NNT Catch Up

NNT hosted Crypto Coffee and Blockchain Beer Spaces #81 on the official The Smart Economy Podcast X account. Topics of discussion included Claude skills and vibe coding, whether vibe coding is breaking out of the crypto space, building revenue-driving applications on the side, best security practices with new vibe-coded apps, the Clarity Act and its impact on building Pistachio Finance, and new vaults in Pistachio Finance.

In Case You Missed It

Raijin Protocol released an update on the next-generation on-chain fighter jet PvP game being built on the Neo X EVM sidechain. The video-based update overviewed foundational core systems, workflows, and mechanics that will power high-speed aerial combat.  

Events

Jan. 30: NNT hosting CC & BB #82 on The Smart Economy Podcast official X account.