NEO Part 1 — A brief history of ICO’s
Ethereum vs Neo
The Summer of 2014, I would argue is one of the most revolutionary points in Cryptocurrency’s short, but dramatic history. It was during this summer that “The [Ethereum] project was bootstrapped via an ether presale” which preceded the launch of the “Frontier”, the experimental release of the Ethereum platform in July 2015. Then was swiftly followed by Augur’s Token Sale a month later; and so began the age of ICO’s.
Since August of 2015, Ethereum’s price has increased from under $1 to over $1000, predominately driven by the insane returns generated by ICOs. Despite a rocky start to this new age, curtsy of the infamous DOA, the first eight months of 2017 saw explosive growth in token sales. By the end of September 2017, ICO sales had raised more than 2 billion dollars, far exceeding the amount raised by traditional VC. The majority this was raised in Ether, although this too had its repercussions.
The relative ease of creating tokens on the Ethereum platform has led to a huge variety of tokens created for all manner of purposes and has shifted the conversation from “Cryptocurrency” to “Blockchain Tech”. You only need to look to Coin Market Cap to see the success of these tokens. However this ease, combined with huge profits and a lack of regulation has come at a cost. From down right scams to appalling mismanagement has allowed projects raise millions of dollars and deliver nothing. Also considering the serious strain these ICOs have put on the Ethereum network, sometimes rending it completely unusable, I would suggest that Ethereum has only maintained its crown due to its first mover advantage, at least until they are able to realase Casper.
However, now there is a faster more focused kid on the block; NEO. While NEO was founded in 2014, it wasn’t until 8th of October 2017 that Red Pulse (NEO’s first ICO) was held. Despite some controversy surrounding timestamps, from my personal perspective it was completely revolutionary in terms of speed and ease of use. Also the way in which fees work on the NEO network, when compared to Ethereum is very interesting. On the Ethereum network you have variable transaction fees based on how fast you want to transaction to be confirmed. A transaction would normally from a few cent to a dollar to send and more complex transactions, such as launching a Smart Contract could cost up to a few dollars. NEO on the other hand, any transaction under 10 GAS ($580) is free, however deploying a smart contract (such as for an ICO) would cost 490 GAS or $28,000. While some may see this as a disadvantage, I see it as a commitment to the NEO network as well as the fact that the GAS fees are paid out to NEO holders.
Red Pulse is currently sitting at roughly 10x its ICO price (in dollar value) down from a high of over 25x; DeepBrain Chain is currently over 12x in USD value, down from a high of over 33x and Qlink is currently trading at 5x ICO value, down from a high of over 10x. These three are currently the only tradable NEO ICO, and not one of them has failed to break 10x.
As stated by Bill Gates in 1996, and demonstrated by countless examples since, “content in king”. With TheKey, APEX, Ontology, Elastos, NEX and many more on the way, I believe NEO, (just like Ethereum) will see an exponential growth in both number of projects and token value. However even now, younger challengers, such as Stellar and Status it will be interesting to see how this plays out in 2018 and beyond.
