What is NEO? (NEO Coin)
Neo formerly as Antshares. NEO is an open-source decentralized blockchain decentralized application platform founded in 2014 by Da HongFei and Erik Zhang. Since its rebranding to Neo from Antshares in 2017, the project's vision is to realize a "smart economy" by utilizing blockchain technology and smart contracts to issue and manage digitized assets.
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 smallest unit 0.00000001. The inflation rate of GAS is controlled with a decaying half life algorithm that will release 100 million GAS over approximately 22 years.
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 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.
The core of the Neo feature set revolves around tools that allow developers to efficiently deploy and scale smart contract applications on the Neo blockchain. X.509 Digital Identities allow developers to tie tokens to real world identities which aids in complying with KYC/AML and other regulatory requirements.
Who created Neo?
Neo, launched as Antshares, was created by Da Hongfei and Erick Zhang in 2014, and rebranded to Neo in 2017.
The Antshares team initially distributed its cryptocurrency, ANS, in a 2014 token sale, raising over 6,100 bitcoin. ANS tokens were then converted to NEO in 2016, with the team conducting a second token sale, raising over $8 million, while releasing the total supply of NEO coins.
Half of the NEO supply was released to its token sale participants, while the other half was retained for Neo developers, a community fund and for investment in other projects.
How does Neo Work?
Neo’s platform allows developers to use its software to run smart contracts (known as NeoContracts) and design new programs (dapps) meant to replicate real world products and services.
NeoContracts differ from other smart contract-based protocols in that developers can build applications using a variety of popular existing languages (like C# and Java), rather than learning a new language.
Thus, NeoContract’s ability to work across various programming languages can be attractive to a larger pool of developers seeking to create dapps, or support existing ones.
Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerant
To secure its blockchain and keep its distributed network of computers in sync, Neo employs a consensus mechanism method called delegated byzantine Fault Tolerant (dBFT).
dBFT works similarly to the delegated proof of stake (DPoS) and leverages a real-time voting system to determine which computers running the software can create the next block on the Neo blockchain. This means anyone who owns NEO can help operate the network.
Each NEO token (sometimes referred to as a Neo coin) can be locked, or “staked,” to represent a vote (the more staked NEO, the more voting power.) All owners who stake NEO then vote for the consensus nodes, who are responsible for creating blocks.
For proposing and adding new blocks to the Neo blockchain, consensus nodes receive the network’s transaction fees (paid in GAS cryptocurrency).
History of NEO.
In 2014, Antshares was founded by Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang. In the following year, it was open-sourced on GitHub and by September 2015, the white paper was released. NEO was officially rebranded from Antshares in June 2017, with the idea of combining the past and the future. The word “neo”, originates from the Greek word “νέο“, meaning ‘new’, ‘modern’, and ‘young’. The vision of building a “smart economy” was developed along with the rebranding.
In March 2018, NEO's parent company Onchain distributed 1 Ontology token (ONT) for every 5 NEO held in a user's cryptocurrency wallet. These tokens will be used to vote on system upgrades, identity verification mechanisms, and other governance issues on the NEO platform.
Tags:
Cryptocurrency