NNT’s Dylan Grabowski talks governance, ecosystem strategy in NeoPod’s first AMA

NeoPod hosted its first community AMA on June 10, featuring NNT writer and editor Dylan Grabowski, in a wide-ranging text-based Discord session covering Neo’s current state, the ongoing governance dispute between co-founders, and what the ecosystem needs to move forward.

The event marks a new chapter for the NeoPod 2.0 refresh, which relaunched earlier this year with a focus on quality content creation and deeper community engagement. Grabowski, who has been with NNT since 2018 and also hosts The Smart Economy Podcast and serves as a GrantShares and Neo Council voting member, was candid throughout the session.

A fractured ecosystem, but one still fighting

Grabowski offered an unvarnished assessment of where Neo stands. He described a project now contending with a public feud between its two co-founders, diminished on-chain activity, and a community being pulled in different directions.

“Neo is sitting on a $400+ million treasury, and both the founders are accusing one another of wrongdoing,” Grabowski said. “Honestly, it’s a terrible look.”

But he was quick to counter the pessimism, pointing to Neo’s core development talent, its active developer communities, and a grassroots layer that continues to build. He pointed to community projects including World of Elements, Neo Red Pill, NeoIgnite, and Raijin Protocol, along with content creators producing material in English, Indonesian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic.

He reserved particular praise for Neo’s core developers, naming Jimmy, Alibaba, Anna, Vitor, Roman, Igor, and Shargon specifically:

“Neo core developers legitimately are some of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life. Without their passion and dedication, Neo would’ve stopped functioning years ago.”

He noted that when neither founder was actively leading, the core team figured out what to focus on independently and kept the project moving forward.

‘Team Neo’ – a governance reset

On the dispute between Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang, Grabowski positioned himself firmly as “Team Neo” rather than aligning with either founder.

“I don’t have ‘a side’ in this argument, only what’s best for users, builders, and the ecosystem,” he said. His stance is formalized in a governance alignment proposal submitted as a GitHub pull request, which outlines two central recommendations: a new board of directors built mostly of accomplished outsiders, and a consolidated multi-signature treasury.

Grabowski argued that the current arrangement, where each founder controls signing access to roughly half of Neo’s assets, is untenable:

“This is not how a successful blockchain ecosystem is managed.”

He acknowledged that existing ecosystem leaders may carry too much history and potential blind spots to fill board positions, and advocated for outsiders who can bring fresh perspective.

Stablecoins, RWAs, and AI agents as the path forward

Grabowski outlined a strategic vision centered on two pillars: stablecoins and real-world assets in the near term, and AI agents for longer-term relevance.

He revealed that he gave an in-person presentation to Da, Neo Global Development, the Neo Foundation, and the Neo community in Hong Kong in October 2023, pitching the onboarding of USDC and USDT and courting RWA issuers.

“Imagine if we’d seriously gone after Tether/Circle and RWA issuers back then, the state of Neo would certainly look different than today,” he said.

Citing data from rwa.xyz, he noted that 263.83 million wallets currently hold stablecoins across a US $300 billion market, with 900,000 wallets holding RWAs worth US $360 billion.

“Stablecoins and RWAs are not sexy. They won’t bring millions of users to Neo. But they will enshrine capital on our chain, and bring long-term partners.”

On AI agents, Grabowski pointed to a future where autonomous agents transact on-chain more frequently than humans, arguing that crypto’s permissionless infrastructure makes it a natural fit for agents that lack the identity documentation needed for traditional financial rails. He noted that Neo’s SpoonOS is already catering to this vertical.

Flamingo’s decline

Grabowski addressed Flamingo Finance, which laid off its entire staff earlier in 2026 and publicly disclosed the state of its FUSD debt in April.

“When we look back on Neo’s history, letting Flamingo fall will probably be one of the biggest tarnishes on the ecosystem’s track record,” he said.

Neo X gaining ground

Grabowski acknowledged a shift in his views on Neo X adoption. Four months earlier, he said he would have argued that N3 was the chain everyone would use. Current data tells a different story – Neo X is consistently recording 2,500 to 3,000 daily transactions compared to Neo N3’s 500 to 2,000.

He attributed the uptick to the new Legacy-to-Neo X migration window, growing exchange support for Neo X assets, and SpoonOS development oriented predominantly toward the EVM-compatible chain. Still, he expressed caution, noting that Neo had previously seen the assumption that developers would come simply because the technology was available fail during the N3 era.

The ideal outcome, he suggested, is competition between the two chains.

“When the builders of and on both chains start having hunger to win over the others, then we all win,” he said.

Despite the challenges, Grabowski struck an optimistic closing note, pointing to institutional adoption of blockchain, the strength of building during bear markets, and Neo’s community resilience as reasons for confidence.

“A blockchain ecosystem is only destined for failure when no one wants to stick around and fight anymore,” he said. “And Neo, for its flaws, still has a community that’s sticking around and fighting for our future.”

The full AMA took place in the NeoPod Discord server.