Neo is a

blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

-based

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

and application platform used to run smart contracts and

decentralized application A decentralised application (DApp, dApp, Dapp, or dapp) is an Application software, application that can operate autonomously, typically through the use of smart contracts, that run on a decentralized computing, blockchain or other distributed le ...

s. The project, originally named Antshares, was founded in 2014 by Da HongFei and Erik Zhang and rebranded as Neo in 2017. In 2017 and 2018, it became popular in China despite the recently enacted prohibition on cryptocurrency in that country.

Technical specifications

The Neo network runs on a proof-of-stake decentralized Byzantine fault tolerant (dBFT) consensus mechanism between a number of centrally approved nodes, and can support up to 10,000 transactions per second. The base asset of the Neo blockchain is the non-divisible Neo token which generates GAS tokens. These GAS tokens, a separate asset on the network, can be used to pay for transaction fees, and are divisible with the smallest unit of 0.00000001. The inflation rate of GAS is controlled with a decaying half-life algorithm that is designed to release 100 million GAS over approximately 22 years. X.509 Digital Identities allow developers to tie tokens to real-world identities which aid in complying with KYC/AML and other regulatory requirements.

History

In 2014, ''Antshares'' was founded by Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang. In the following year, it was open-sourced on

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

and by September 2015, the white paper was released. A total of 100 million Neo were created in the genesis block. 50 million Neo were sold to early investors through an

initial coin offering An initial coin offering (ICO) or initial currency offering is a type of funding using cryptocurrencies. It is often a form of crowdfunding, although a private ICO which does not seek public investment is also possible. In an ICO, a quantity of c ...

in 2016 that raised US 4.65 million, with the remaining 50 million Neo locked into a smart contract. Each year, a maximum of 15 million Neo tokens are unlocked which are used by the Neo development team to fund long-term development goals. Neo was officially rebranded from ''Antshares'' in June 2017, with the idea of combining the past and the future. Neo3 or N3 was first announced by Erik Zhang in 2018 as an upgrade to the previous Neo protocol (now known as Neo Legacy). Certain new features do not have

backward compatibility In telecommunications and computing, backward compatibility (or backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, software, real-world product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with Input ...

with the Neo Legacy blockchain. N3 was implemented and launched with a new genesis block. In March 2018, Neo's parent company Onchain distributed 1 Ontology token (ONT) for every 5 NEO held in a user's

cryptocurrency wallet A cryptocurrency wallet is a device, physical medium, program or an online service which stores the Public-key cryptography, public and/or private keys for cryptocurrency transactions. In addition to this basic function of storing the keys, a cr ...

. These tokens were intended to be used to vote on system upgrades, identity verification mechanisms, and other governance issues on the Neo platform.

References

External links

Official Website
{{Cryptocurrencies Blockchains Cryptocurrency projects