How NEO Became China’s Answer to Ethereum?
The cryptocurrency industry is one that is growing at an unprecedented rate. The environment has grown tremendously in the last five years and is now a billion-dollar sector. Several entrepreneurs owe their millionaire status to this industry. This time around we will be looking at two such millionaires. But all this success has led to a saturation in the industry, and it is now highly competitive. With new currencies propping up every year, it is difficult to stay ahead and stay relevant. One such new cryptocurrency that is gaining momentum is NEO. Here’s a look at how this currency came up and the story behind its success.
NEO Vs Ethereum
Ethereum is the second most popular cryptocurrency, second only to the Bitcoin. However, NEO has been creeping up behind Ethereum and is very close to catching up to it. The competition between the two is so fierce that is has earned NEO the nickname “Chinese Ethereum”. The currencies are going head to head against each other because they are very similar in many aspects. For instance, both currencies are multi-purpose, unlike the Bitcoin.
However, NEO gets a lot of support from the developer community as it supports C++, C#, Java and even Go. Therefore, developers skilled at one of these languages can build projects on NEO. Furthermore, the system has the power to handle over 10,000 transactions/second. In comparison, Ethereum supports only 15 transactions/second.
Growth in China
One of the biggest support that NEO receives is from China. China creates alternatives for most services provided around the world. For instance, Alibaba goes head to head with Amazon, while WeChat battles WhatsApp, and Baidu takes on Google. In the field of cryptocurrency, NEO is China’s answer to Ethereum. So much so that has become China’s largest cryptocurrency due to support from the Chinese government.
About the Founder
Da Hongfei, who co-founded NEO, also founded AntShares in 2014 for a decentralized app building. This company later became NEO in 2017 via a re-branding scheme. Hongfei and Antshare’s CTO Erik Zhang founded Onchain in 2014. This company served as a blockchain research and development company.
Onchain levied partnerships with Microsoft China and Fadada throughout 2016 to build this company. These three companies together became Legal China later on. Hongfei also serves as a communication link between his company and the Chinese government and works as their consultant on matters regarding cryptocurrency.
Growth and Success
Onchain was also the first Chinese blockchain development company. In 2016, NEO released China’s first consensus protocol called dBFT. It is this protocol that allows NEO to carry out lightning-quick transactions. NEO started 2017 priced at $0.16 and then grew a miraculous 111,400% to end the year at $162! The company’s current market share stands at a whopping $4.96 billion.
The company opened with 100 million NEOs, out of which, 50 million went to early investors, and the rest went into a smart contract. Every year, 15 million tokens get released to fund development and research. In 2018, Da Hongfei announced that the company would split into NEO Foundation, under Hongfei and Erik Zhang, and two units named NEO Global Development and Global Capital.
NGD will work on research and development, while the Foundation would handle everything to do with operations and marketing. NGD opened its first office in Shanghai in 2018 and the second one in Seattle.
The word “Neo”, in Greek, means new, modern and young. With their fresh ideas and young team of professionals, it does look like NEO is the newest kid on the block with the power to disrupt the cryptocurrency industry.
Being a cinephile with a love for all things outdoorsy, Athulya never misses a chance to chase inspiring stories or poke fun at things, even when the subject is herself. Currently pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering, she is someone innately interested in technical and scientific research. Music reviews and op-eds define her as they allow her to explore different perspectives. Though sometimes she thinks she makes more sense playing the guitar than she does while writing.