It has been pretty quiet around NEO in the recent months – the chinese Ethereum killer is still in limbo over what will their government do about blockchain in general. But that didn’t stop them to improve the technical side of the project, nor the teams that launched their tokens on NEO network to keep updating their products.
Neo was known as Antshares and it was founded by Da Hongfei in 2014. In 2017 it was renamed as Neo. Neo is the true rival of Etnereum and it offers more than a digital coin. It is a blockchain platform which empowers developers to generate smart contracts and decentralized applications. Smart contracts are quite popular nowadays and are predicted to be even more so in the future so this niche is the most competitive one in the crypto world.
One of the NEO holders posted a nice write-up of his stance on NEO future and if the holders can still be bullish of the Da Hongfei’s brainchild. He made sure to focus on the fundamentals, stating that developer activity is recording new highs every week, regular hackathons and meetups and ever increasing number of working dApps on NEO blockchain are clear signal where the future of this network lies. He also emphasized NEO’s efforts to improve UI of their wallets which is an important element of adoption process as users are frustrated with terrible user experience and awfully designed interfaces of other crypto projects. Here is the link to the full article.
What you'll learn 👉
Aphelion stops trading
Aphelion, a decentralized exchange based on the NEO blockchain, which launched earlier this year reported that they have made the business decision to disable mainnet trading. All market pairs on the Aphelion DEX were disabled on November 21, 2018. Users funds and orders were canceled and refunded starting Friday, November 23rd, 2018.
Yes, Aphelion disables DEX for now as directed by counsel in response to EtherDelta ruling. Don't believe the FUD though, project continues: https://t.co/vxy4jnMHiS …
— Aphelion (@Apheliontoken) November 22, 2018
While Aphelion emphasizes that it is not folding and that the company will continue, it does concede that it will need to obtain a broker-dealer license through registering as a national exchange or partnering with an organization that has one.
This decision comes in light of the happening from earlier this month when the SEC charged Zachary Coburn, the founder of decentralized exchange (DEX) EtherDelta, with operating an unregistered exchange. This regulatory action has caused ripples across the industry, and other DEXs are beginning to feel the heat.
New wallet supports
Exodus is a renowned bitcoin desktop wallet application made an announcement of adding the support for NEO together with their existing optimizations on their platform.
Another major wallet, Atomic Wallet also added support for NEO and GAS couple of days ago. Atomic Wallet is available for all major Operating Systems and is swiftly taking a big chunk of the crypto wallets market since its launch earlier this year.
NEO Founder thinks blockchains are overregulated
Da Hongfei, the founder of Antshares (presently and best known as NEO), believes that blockchains and cryptocurrencies are over-regulated in the extreme. In fact, he was recently quoted in a discussion with 8BTC as saying:
In essence, blockchain can barely survive within the existing financial regulation system. A licensed institute may find it unnecessary to cooperate with a blockchain company because it is already licensed to conduct the business. Why would it bother to be engaged in a partnership that doesn’t benefit it that much? If blockchain companies end up with no license, they won’t be legally permitted to promote massive adoption of applications.
Hongfei should know: NEO, along with several other blockchain ICO-funded projects, offered refunds to buyers in an effort to comply with Chinese rulings on ICOs. One of the effected ICOs was actually a token that lives on the NEO blockchain, Red Pulse (PHX). Today, Red Pulse has a market cap of just $22 million, while the NEO price has been in a depression for quite some time, resting under $20 at present rates.
In conclusion
With an ever-evolving base project and a growing ecosystem, “The Chinese Ethereum” looks to be well on its way to replicate the achievements of its western role model. It remains to be seen if this will be enough to gain significant market share and possibly become the no.1 smart contract platform in the world.
