Neo Blockchain was previously called as AntShares (ANS) was founded by Erik Zhang and Da Hongfei in the year 2014. Neo is often described as China’s Ethereum. It is an open source Blockchain, which means it encourages collaboration and contribution from developers around the world. They are piloting something called smart contracts 2.0 and it can be defined as multi-language contract compiler, that means it doesn’t matter that you run in Java.net or C Sharp, it will translate all of that into a native smart contract language. In this way, Neo has access to world developers without them having to learn anything new. Developers from any part of the world can create smart contracts in it. So the cryptocurrency often termed as ‘Ethereum-Killer’.
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Neo Blockchain Consensus Algorithm
One of the most controversial things in Crypto space right now is how to settle the transaction. There are two dominant types of consensus mechanisms called Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS). The PoW requires a lot of electricity but PoS requires very less electricity as compared to PoW to validate nodes. One of the major problem in PoS is that it suffers the possibility of chain split, here is a comparison between PoW vs PoS.
Neo blockchain uses Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance alternative (DBFT). It can support up to 10,000 transactions per second. This type of consensus mechanism runs on lowest electricity consumption and eliminates the possibility of chain splitting. Therefore the system runs of DBFT consensus mechanism cannot hard fork into two different chains.
NEO Types of Tokens
The ecosystem of Neo has two types of tokens:
- Neo initially named as AntShares
- Gas initially named as Antcoins
Neo cryptocurrency is not divisible in fraction like other cryptocurrencies so the minimum amount of Neo an individual can hold is 1 Neo. Gas is divisible in fractions so the least amount of Gas is 0.00000001. The Gas tokens work as transaction fees over here so if any transaction is made the user has to pay some amount of Gas tokens. Whenever a user holds Neo token in its official Neo wallet the user receives Gas tokens as dividends. There is a fixed supply of both of them that is 100 million.
Languages compatible with Neo’s smart contract
- Python / Ruby
- JavaScript / Java / TypeScript / Kotlin, Eclipse
- C# / C++ / GO / VB.Net / F#, Visual Studio
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NEO Digital asset and Digital identity
The assets which exist in the form of electric data with the ability to get programmed is called the digital asset. Neo helps to have the digital asset in a decentralized environment which is safe and free from any type of risk which is suffered in the centralized environment.
There are two forms of digital asset: Global assets and Contract assets.
Digital identity is a type of identity information of a person or organization which is in electronic form.
Neo blockchain identity verification will be done by:
- Fingerprints
- Voice
- Use of facial features
- SMS
- Other methods
Therefore smart economy of Neo includes the combination of three things, Digital asset, Digital identity, and smart contracts.
Other NEO Features
- NeoX
- NeoFS
- NeoQS
NeoX enables cross-chain interoperability and it is further divided into two parts named:
- Cross-chain assets exchange protocol
- Cross-chain distributed transaction protocol
NeoFS is file storage protocol which uses Distributed Hash Table (DHT) technology. NeoFS analyze data through file content instead file path. The files are distributed and stored in many different nodes so the large files are divided into fixed-size data blocks. In this way, files with low-reliability requirements can be stored and accessible for almost free. NeoFS can be combined with digital identity so that digital certificates used by digital identities can be sent, assigned and revoke without the central server to manage them so the old blocks can be restored in future.
NeoQS or Neo Quantum Safe there is no risk of being hacked by quantum computers. The Ethereum and Bitcoin utilize ECC and there might be the risk of being hacked by quantum computers because such computers can solve a large number of decomposition problems. The quantum computer does not have the ability to quickly solve shortest vector problem and closest vector problem which is considered to be most safe.
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NEO Token Distribution
The maximum supply of Neo tokens is 100 million which is divided into two portions. During the ICO 50 million token was distributed to the supporters of Neo.
The other portion of 50 million tokens was locked up for a year which is used for long-term growth and support of Neo project. The future plan for this 50 million token:
| Total Tokens | Purpose |
| 10 million | Used to motivate developers and council members |
| 10 million | Used to motivate developers in the ecosystem |
| 15 million | Used to cross-invest in other blockchain projects |
| 15 million | Retained as the contingency |
- The annual use of NEO in principle shall not exceed 15 million tokens.
Government support
China is ahead of all other countries in terms of standardizing the blockchain. They are replacing every other technology with blockchain. China is developing its own cryptocurrency to be used in central banks.
Founder of Neo Blockchain Da Hongfei was invited to a conference held by the Chinese government to discuss blockchain technology. The event was titled “2017 Trustworthy blockchain convention.” This event aims to promote blockchain in China. It means Neo is on the right path for the Chinese government. So this increases the interest of the people in Neo ecosystem. Currently, in China, they are using Neo blockchain to map real-world assets. Neo even has some really strong partnership and one of it is Microsoft.
*Disclaimer: The article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide any investment advice. Claims made in this article do not constitute investment advice and should not be taken as such. 101 Blockchains shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this article. Do your own research!
