NEO Review: Beginners guide
NEO (NEO): A Chinese-based decentralised applications network
Industry type: Blockchain startups and dApp infrastructure.
What is NEO?:
NEO is a decentralised applications platform that is based in China and developed by blockchain company Onchain. NEO was originally known as ‘Antshares’ but went through a huge rebranding campaign in 2017 that propelled it around the world as the new ‘Ethereum Killer.’ NEO has some significant differences to its predecessor and its respected team have made huge waves in fostering a positive relationship towards crypto and blockchain in the Chinese market.
What gives it value?:
- Its a network for decentralised applications and ICOs.
- It can support over 10,000 transactions per second.
- It has no transaction fees for the general user.
- Its vision is to revolutionise a new smart-economy.
Interesting Technology:
- It uses an optimised Delegated Proof of Stake system called the Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance protocol.
- The Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance protocol is a process where NEO stakeholders elect the nodes they wish to verify transactions on the network, then those elected nodes choose ‘special nodes’ that build the blockchain. This is to secure consensus amongst the network and avoids having to fork the blockchain to make network upgrades.
- NEO has two native cryptocurrencies. NEO is the cryptocurrency used to stake ownership in the NEO platform. GAS is is the cryptocurrency used to pay for services within the network. GAS is also generated and earnt in exchange for staking NEO tokens, similar to staking your FIAT money in a bank and earning interest.
Notable team:
- Da Hongfei is the co-founder of NEO and CEO of Onchain. Hongfei is considered the cryptocurrency pioneer of Asia and is one of the most respected experts in crypto.
- Erik Zhang is the co-founder of NEO and Onchain. Zhang is well regarded as the author of the Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance protocol.
Notable partnerships:
- NEO Global Capital (NGC) is the investment arm of NEO that invests in inspiring projects that are related to the blockchain.
- NEOs parent company Onchain has a close relationship with world-leading Chinese eCommerce Alibaba.
- Microsoft and NEO are partnered to digitise real-world assets such as evidence, intellectual properties, and medical records.
- AGRELLO has partnered with NEO to create legally binding smart contracts that are powered by Artificial Intelligence and remove the need for lawyers.
Review: The Good.
- Energy efficient and secure through the Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance protocol.
- Neo token holders can stake their tokens and earn voting rights whilst earning GAS as reward.
- It is secure against quantum computer hacks through quantum-proof cryptography.
- Its network is more flexible for developers as it accepts more coding languages than Ethereum.
- NEO and GAS have no transaction fees. Users also have the option to pay transaction fees to gain priority in the transaction queue.
- It can support 10,000 transactions per second as has plenty of room to scale.
Review: The Not So Good.
- As the Chinese government has so far looked at cryptocurrency unfavourably, NEO may run into future problems due to its mother-countries regulations although the Chinese government began developing a more positive relationship with each other.
- As NEO is newer than its main competitor Ethereum, for dApp developers it has far fewer resources to offer in comparison.
- It is more expensive than Ethereum for dApp developers to initiate their smart-contracts.
Future Roadmap:
- NEO plans to be much more than just a Chinese based dApp platform. It’s broader vision is to revolutionise and support and new smart-economy that digitises assets and proof of ownership through smart contracts on the blockchain.
CONCLUSION:
In my opinion, as NEO comes inbuilt with important solutions to the problems that Ethereum is currently trying to solve, and as it has become one of the most popular cryptocurrencies at the time, it has earned its place as an up and coming contender with its predecessor. Bear in mind though that it is still an up and coming platform that has a long way to go before it can come within reach of ‘killing Ethereum’. Regardless, NEO provides an alternative platform for dApp developers in a free market, and it is swiftly gaining patriotic favour with the largest population on Earth.
NEO Price:
The current NEO price, market cap and charts.
Local exchanges:
Coinspot: www.coinspot.com.au
Overseas exchanges:
Gate.io: https://gate.io/
Binance: www.binance.com
Bitfinex: www.bitfinex.com
Cryptopia: https://www.cryptopia.co.nz/
Where to store this crypto:
Hardware wallet: www.bitgear.com.au
Desktop wallet: https://github.com/CityOfZion/neon-wallet/releases
Online wallet: https://neotracker.io/wallet
Mobile wallet: https://o3.network/
Similar coins:
Ethereum (ETH) -The original decentralised applications platform.
EOS (EOS) – A decentralised applications platform with potential perks.
Cardano (ADA) – A 3rd-gen decentralised applications platform.
Further information:
Whitepaper: http://docs.neo.org/en-us/
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NEO/
Website: https://neo.org/
