Neo: An open network for the smart economy
Detailed review on the project
Table of contents
Introduction
Technology
Team
Partnerships
Ecosystem
Use case
Social metrics
Markets and volume
Competitors
Roadmap
Token Mechanics
Token Metrics
Summary
Introduction
Neo is a distributed network that combines digital assets, digital identities, and smart contracts. The Neo system will use delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance PoS consensus algorithm (dBFT), cross-chain interoperability (NeoX), the distributed file storage system (NeoFS), quantum-safe lattice-based cryptographic mechanism (NeoQS), and other original technologies, as the infrastructure for the intelligent economy of the future.
Technology
Consensus mechanism: dBFT
Byzantine Fault Tolerance mechanism is a universal solution for distributed systems. Neo proposes dBFT (delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance) consensus algorithm based on pBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance) algorithm. dBFT algorithm determines validator set according to real-time blockchain voting, which effectively enhances the effectiveness of the algorithm, bringing block time and transaction confirmation time savings. dBFT2.0 as an upgraded version was released in March 2019, which improves robustness and safety by introducing 3-stage consensus as well as a recovery mechanism.
System Model
There are two types of Neo nodes in the network: one is the bookkeeping node, which is responsible for the consensus communication with other bookkeeping node to generate new blocks; the other is the ordinary node, which does not participate in the consensus, it can transfer and make transactions. The bookkeeping nodes are generated through voting by the entire network users.
In Neo, a relatively small number of bookkeeping nodes are selected through voting to perform PBFT consensus and generate new blocks, and then the new blocks are released to the whole network to reach a consensus across the network.
Consensus (bookkeeping) Node: This node participates in the consensus activity, make a block proposal and vote.
Ordinary Node: This node, but does not participate in the consensus activity.
Speaker (Unique in each round): The Speaker is responsible to create and transmit a proposal block to the system.
Delegates (Multiple): Delegates are responsible for voting on the proposal block. The proposal will be accepted if more than 2f+1 consensus nodes vote it. f is the limit of Byzantine nodes.
Validator candidate: Nodes participating in elections. Candidate nodes for consensus activity.
View: The dataset used during one consensus activity. The view number start from 0 in each round, and the number will increase when it failed to reach consensus in a round.
The Algorithm
Neo algorithm ensures security as well as usability. With erroneous nodes in the consensus making no more than ⌊ (N−1) / 3 ⌋ , the functionality and stability of the system is guaranteed. In it, N = |𝑅| suggests the total number of nodes joined in the consensus making while R stands for the set of consensus nodes. Given F = ⌊ (N−1) / 3 ⌋ , f stands for the maximum number of erroneous nodes allowed in the system. In fact, the total ledger is maintained by bookkeeping nodes while ordinary nodes do not participate in the consensus making. This is to show the entire consensus making procedures.
All consensus nodes are required to maintain a state table to record current consensus status. The data set used for a consensus from its beginning to its end is called a View. If consensus cannot be reached within the current View, a View Change will be required. Neo identifies each View with a number v, starting from 0 and it may increase till achieving the consensus.
Neo identifies each consensus node with a number, starting from 0, the last node is numbered N − 1. For each round of consensus making, a node will play speaker of the house while other nodes play congressmen. The speaker’s number p will be determined by the following algorithm: Hypothetically the current block height is h, then 𝑝 = (ℎ − 𝑣) 𝑚𝑜𝑑 N, p’s value range will be 0 ≤ 𝑝 < N .
A new block will be generated with each round of consensus, with at least N − F signatures from bookkeeping nodes. Upon the generation of a block, a new round of consensus making shall begin, resetting v=0.
General Procedures
A round of consensus consists of 4 steps, as shown in the figure above.
- Speaker starts consensus by broadcasting a Prepare Request message,
- Delegates broadcast Prepare Response after receiving the Prepare Request message,
- Validators broadcast Commit after receiving enough Prepare Response messages,
- Validators produce and broadcast a new block after receiving enough Commit messages.
View Change
In case of the following scenarios, the Change View Request will be broadcasted attempting to replace speaker:
- The transaction verification fails
- Time is out while waiting for Prepare Request or Prepare Response
Recovery Mechanism
When creating Change View Request, if there are not enough active consensus nodes (sum of nodes with Commit sent and fault nodes is greater than F), consensus nodes will broadcast Recovery Request message to update the local consensus context. Upon receiving Recovery Request, if certain conditions are met, a consensus node will generate and broadcast Recovery Message.
Fault Tolerance of dBFT2.0
A dBFT2.0 consensus system with N validators can tolerate at most F abnormal nodes. Each consensus phase (Commit, Change View, block generation, etc.) requires at least M nodes to reach consensus [M = N-F]. As long as the amount of normal validators is not less than M, the consensus process will go on smoothly. For example, just 4 − ⌊ (4−1) / 3 ⌋ =3 normal validators required can keep alive a consensus system where N= 4.
Single Block Finality of dBFT2.0
Neo’s dBFT 1.0 algorithm was susceptible to a single block fork in rare cases of network latency. dBFT2.0 fixes this problem, hence there is no possibility of forking since then. The mechanism is described as follows:
- To generate a new block, it is required to collect Commit messages from at least M different validators for corresponding block proposal.
- A validator will never change its view after broadcasting Commit message.
Hence the success of block generation means:
- There are already at least M validators having signed the block proposal and broadcast Commit messages. Moreover, these validators won’t change the view in current consensus round.
- The rest of the validators are insufficient to produce another different block.
Therefore, the finality of the new block can be guaranteed at a given height.
Smart contract system: NeoContract
Neo’s smart contract system consists of three parts:
1. NeoVM — Universal Block Chain Virtual Machine:
NeoVM is a lightweight, general-purpose virtual machine whose architecture is very close to the JVM and .NET Runtime, similar to a virtual CPU that reads and executes instructions in the contract in sequence, performs process control based on the functionality of the instruction operations, logic operations and so on. It has a good start-up speed and versatility, is very suitable for small programs such as smart contracts, can also be ported to non-blockchain systems, or integrated with the IDE to provide an optimal development experience. NeoVM’s functionality can be extended, like introducing a JIT (real-time compiler) mechanism, thereby enhancing the efficiency of the implementation.
2. InteropService — Interoperable Services:
Used to load the blockchain ledger, digital assets, digital identity, persistent storage area, the file storage system of NEO (NeoFS), and other underlying services. They are like virtual machines that are provided for virtual machines, enabling smart contracts to access these services at run time to achieve some advanced functionality. Through this low-coupling design, NeoVM can be ported to any blockchain or even non-blockchain system used, increasing the utility of the smart contracts.
3. DevPack — Compiler and IDE plugin:
DevPack includes the high-level language compiler and the IDE plug-in. Because NeoVM’s architecture is very similar to JVM and .NET Runtime, the compilers in DevPack can compile Java byte code and .NET MSIL into NeoVM’s instruction set. Java / Kotlin, C# developers do not need to learn new languages and will be able to immediately start developing smart contracts in VS, Eclipse and other familiar IDE environments. This greatly reduces the learning curve for developing smart contracts, allowing us to easily build a vibrant community around NeoContract.
NeoContract can create a smart contract call tree through static analysis before running a smart contract. Through the deterministic call tree, the Neo node can dynamically fragment the smart contract to achieve theoretically unlimited expansion , which overcomes the “jamming effect” caused by the static fragmentation of other block chain systems.
Cross-chain interoperability agreement: NeoX
NeoX is a protocol that implements cross-chain interoperability. NeoX is divided into two parts: “cross-chain assets exchange protocol” and “cross-chain distributed transaction protocol.”
Cross-chain assets exchange agreement:
NeoX has been extended on existing double-stranded atomic assets exchange protocols to allow multiple participants to exchange assets across different chains and to ensure that all steps in the entire transaction process succeed or fail together. In order to achieve this function, Neo need to use NeoContract function to create a contract account for each participant. If other blockchains are not compatible with NeoContract, they can be compatible with NeoX as long as they can provide simple smart contract functionality.
Cross-chain distributed transaction protocol:
Cross-chain distributed transactions mean that multiple steps of a transaction are scattered across different blockchains and that the consistency of the entire transaction is ensured. This is an extension of cross-chain assets exchange, extending the behavior of assets exchange into arbitrary behavior. In layman’s terms, NeoX makes it possible for cross-chain smart contracts where a smart contract can perform different parts on multiple chains, either succeeding or reverting as a whole. This gives excellent possibilities for cross-chain collaborations and we are exploring cross-chain smart contract application scenarios.
Distributed Storage Protocol: NeoFS
NeoFS is a distributed storage protocol that utilizes Distributed Hash Table (DHT) technology. NeoFS indexes the data through file content (Hash) rather than file path (URI). Large files will be divided into fixed-size data blocks that are distributed and stored in many different nodes.
The main problem with this type of system is the need to find a balance between redundancy and reliability. NeoFS plans to solve this contradiction by means of token incentives and the establishment of backbone nodes. Users can choose the reliability requirements of the file. Files with low reliability requirements can be stored and accessed for free or almost free. Stable and reliable services for files with high reliability requirement will be provided by backbone nodes.
NeoFS will serve as one of the InteropService interoperability services under the NeoContract system, enabling smart contracts to store large files on the blockchain and set access for those files. In addition, NeoFS can be combined with digital identity so that digital certificates used by digital identities can be assigned, sent, and revoked without a central server to manage them. In the future, the old block data can be stored in NeoFS, so that most of the full nodes can release the old data for better scalability and at the same time, ensure the integrity of historical data.
Anti-quantum cryptography mechanism: NeoQS
The emergence of quantum computers poses a major challenge to RSA and ECC-based cryptographic mechanisms. Quantum computers can solve the large number of decomposition problems (which RSA relies on) and the elliptic curve discrete logarithm (which ECC relies on) in a very short time. NeoQS (Quantum Safe) is a lattice-based cryptographic mechanism. At present, quantum computers do not have the ability to quickly solve the Shortest Vector Problem (SVP) and the Closest Vector Problem (CVP), which is considered to be the most reliable algorithm for resisting quantum computers.
NEO3
The cornerstone of the team’s efforts is NEO 3.0, which will be a robust blockchain implementation with high throughput, enhanced stability and security, an optimized smart contract system, and a feature-packed infrastructure set for diverse business application scenarios.
On the flip side, the team keenly recognizes governance’s pivotal role in the long-term evolution of a blockchain as the common good collectively owned by stakeholders and more broadly the entire surrounding communities. In 2019, they are actively collaborating with experts from academia, industry, and community to explore various governance mechanisms including liquid democracy, futarchy and some others that emerged in recent times. In many cases the economic model is tightly interlaced with governance mechanism, therefore they will be treated as an integrated system. NEPs regarding on-chain governance changes will be published if satisfying outcomes are achieved after extensive research and simulation.
New features in NEO 3.0
a) dBFT 2.0
In dBFT 2.0, the team added a recovery mechanism that greatly improved the stability of the consensus algorithm. In the rare occurrence of a network failure or a node failure, a quick recovery is expected.
The development of dBFT 2.0 began in Q4 of 2018 and was completed in Q1 of 2019. It will soon be deployed to the main network of NEO 2.x.
b) Pricing Model
There are two native tokens on the Neo blockchain, namely neo and gas. Gas is used to pay transaction fees and smart contract execution fees.
Currently, the relatively high cost of deploying and running smart contracts leads to a reluctance in smart contract usage and development. The current pricing model becomes a significant obstacle in the gas application scenarios, and thus hinders the continuous growth of DApp development and usage on Neo platform.
In NEO 3.0, the team will address this issue by significantly reducing the deployment and execution costs of smart contracts, thereby expanding the application scenarios of gas and increasing the number of DApps. Prior to the NEO 3.0 implementation, credible projects can apply for grants from the Neo Foundation with contract deployment costs.
c) Internet Resource Access
NEO 3.0 will have a built-in oracle implementation that allows smart contracts to access Internet resources during execution. Inconsistencies between nodes when accessing Internet resources can be resolved thanks to the security and efficiency of dBFT 2.0.
With this feature, developers can easily develop more sophisticated or scenario-specific oracles based on Neo, and develop more diverse DApps that rely on external data.
d) P2P Protocol
In NEO 3.0, the team will redesign the P2P protocol, add support for the UDP communications protocol, and enable compression options. This is expected to greatly improve the TPS and stability of the network.
e) NeoVM
In NEO 3.0, NeoVM will be completely decoupled from the blockchain and become a pure virtual machine. There are several benefits to this:
- Easy implementation of native contracts.
- Application scenarios of NeoVM outside the blockchain.
- Smooth Integration of NeoVM into any IDE and easy debugging of smart contracts without loading blockchain data.
In addition, NeoVM will also include some new features, such as support for static members, exception handling, and more.
f) Simplified Architecture
Currently, there are two methods to create assets on Neo. The first is to create a global asset with RegisterTransaction, and the second is to create a contract asset with a smart contract. In practice, global assets are rarely used, and most applications create contract assets due to their flexibility and functionality. Since global assets are not integrated with smart contracts, managing global assets in smart contracts are very difficult.
For these reasons, the team doesn’t need to continue to support global assets in NEO 3.0. In NEO 3.0, all assets are created in smart contracts, including neo and gas.
By removing global assets, it becomes possible to unify all transaction types. Currently, in NEO 2.x, there are 9 different transaction types. These transaction types are either related to a particular application scenario or provide more niche functionality. For example, RegisterTransaction and IssueTransaction are related to the creation and distribution of global assets. Since global assets will no longer exist, these related transactions are rendered obsolete.
Other transactions dealing with complex application scenarios will also be removed and replaced with interop services in smart contracts. As a result, there is only a need for a single transaction type in NEO 3.0, which is used to execute smart contracts.
The team has also proposed a simplified validation model that will greatly improve the speed of transaction verification, and allow these validations to be performed concurrently.
With these architectural adjustments, the performance of NEO 3.0 base layer will be substantially increased by orders of magnitude. However, this new architecture can lead to incompatibility with NEO 2.x. In order to minimize the impact of this incompatibility, the team plans to delay the development of any incompatible features until all NEO 2.x compatible features have been developed.
g) NeoFS
NeoFS is intended to be primarily used by DApps for data storage and as a Content Delivery Network. Moreover, NeoFS can be used to create private distributed storage systems for SMEs, which use regular servers or clusters (data centers), and for storing large amounts of unstructured IoT data.
The use of smart contracts is proposed to control the distribution of rewards from data owners and publishers to participants that are hosting data. The Neo protocol can be extended for deeper integration with NeoFS, allowing storage on data nodes instead of blockchain ledger. A topic of further research is the potential of decreasing the cost of smart contract deployment along with storing data and files to be used by smart contracts. In addition, NeoFS could be used to store old block data instead of full nodes, further increasing the scalability of Neo.
NeoFS contains a scalable data placement method. Fine control over object location and minimal data movement in case of storage node failures are achieved by using a subset of a network map and storage policy rules for object placement, along with Rendezvous hashing for node selection.
In addition, the proposed platform uses a novel zero-knowledge data validation method based on homomorphic hashing to minimize data transfers. This helps to maintain network scalability by minimizing computational costs on storage node and validation nodes, and ensures a large number of parallel interactions.
h) NeoID
Digital identity refers to the identity information of individuals, organizations, and other entities that exist in electronic form. Blockchain brings a new way to define identities and the relationships between them.
NeoID is a decentralized identity protocol built on Neo. It empowers users and organizations to have better control of their identities and delivers a higher degree of trust and security to the smart economy.
It consists of three main parts: Trust Model, Privacy Model and Game Model. The Trust Model describes the rules of trust in this distributed network. The Privacy Model describes the privacy protection scheme for users’ online data. The Game Model describes the benefits and penalties of actions within the trust network. These three parts provide a mathematical model to abstract the real world, forming the basis of NeoID.
NeoID will not only support a decentralized identifier issuance model but will also be compatible with the X.509 level certificate issuance model.
Launch of NEO3 TestNet and NEO3 Preview1
As a big milestone in the development of NEO3, Neo has launched the NEO3 TestNet and released NEO3 Preview1 this September.
With the launch of NEO3 Preview1, Neo has taken a tangible step forward in terms of advancing NEO3 while enabling its developer communities to begin testing and exploring NEO3 upgrades.
To accelerate enterprise-grade blockchain innovations for the future, NEO3 will empower developers by completely revamp NEO2 to deliver a scalable platform with higher throughput, enhanced stability and security, an optimized smart contract system, and a feature-packed infrastructure set.
Major features and improvements included in NEO3 Preview1:
- Architecture Optimization
- Neo is moving away from UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) to an Account based transaction model in NEO3. All assets will be created in smart contracts in NEO3, to fully utilize smart contract functionalities.
- Smart Contract enhancements
- Native contracts for NEO, GAS, and Network Policy that can be invoked by other contracts: auto-claimable GAS
- Contracts will now require application manifest and ScriptHeader to describe its properties, including: application Binary Interface (ABI) and contact method descriptor and permissions.
- New smart contract APIs: access to notifications and JSON serialization.
-NeoVM is now decoupled from the Neo blockchain and can be used independently.
-Transaction optimizations
- Single transaction type for all blockchain transactions
- Scoped witness (scope for signature usage)
- Transaction outcome is now being stored
- Transaction validation by block height
-Blocks optimizations
- Introduced maximum size limit for blocks
- Introduced maximum size limit for witness for better spam attack preventions.
2. Stability enhancements
dBFT2.0:
- 1/3 fault tolerance
- One-block finality
- Recovery mechanism
3. Pricing model adjustment
- Overall fee structure adjusted to greatly reduce system fees, contract deployment costs and NeoVM instruction costs (for information on current fees click here).
- Network fees will be applicable for all transactions.
4. Performance enhancements
- Auto compression mechanism on p2p network.
For full technical details, refer to A Deep Dive into NEO3 Preview1 Features.
NEO3 Preview1 is now available for download here.
Team
Neo was started by the same duo who founded Shanghai-based blockchain company OnChain — CEO Da Hongfei and CTO Erik Zhang.
According to the Neo website, there are more than 30 members in the team. It consists of nine core developers, four Neo Global Development (NGD) members, and twenty community contributors.
Neo Foundation Key Members
Hongfei Da — Founder of Neo, Chair of Neo Foundation, CEO of NGD
Hongfei Da founded AntShares in 2014 which was later renamed to Neo in June 2017. Leveraging on his extensive experience and expertise in blockchain technologies and innovations, he is widely recognized as a pioneering and visionary leader in the global blockchain industry.
Experience:
- Onchain — Founder & CEO. Dates Employed: Dec 2016 — Present.
- IntPass Consulting — CEO. Dates Employed: Jan 2005 — Dec 2013.
Education:
- South China University of Technology. Degree Name: Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Field Of Study -Technology and English.
Erik Zhang — Founder and core developer of Neo, Chair of Neo Foundation
Erik is the founder and a core developer of Neo, author of the dBFT consensus mechanism. He is an expert on blockchain technology and information security, as well as a strong advocate for open source development. He leads Neo’s global developer communities to continuously innovate, apply and promote technology in the blockchain field. Currently he is leading the development of NEO 3.0, enhancing the developer experience, to get ready for enterprise blockchain applications.
Neo Core Developers
Erik Zhang — Founder and core developer of Neo, Chair of Neo Foundation.
Lights Li 李剑英 — Co-founder, NewEconoLabs
Experience:
- Nel — CTO. Dates Employed: Dec 2017 — Present
Fernando Díaz Toledano — Shargon — Founder, Red4Sec, Expert in security
Experience:
- Red4Sec — Miembro fundador. Dates Employed Mar 2017 — Present
- City of Zion — IT Security Consultant — NEO Smart Economy. Dates Employed: Oct 2017 — Present
- FCSE — Colaborador. Dates Employed 2016 — Present
- HackerOne — Bug Bounty Researcher. Dates Employed: Feb 2017 — Present
Education:
- IES Ribera del Tajo
- The Security Sentinel
Jeff Solinsky — Blockchain enthusiast
Experience:
- Amazon — Sr Software Development Engineer. Dates Employed Mar 2019 — Present
- Aphelion (APH) — Principal Software Development Engineer. Dates Employed: Apr 2018 — Present
- Peek Traffic / Semex (Formerly Quixote Traffic / US Traffic) — Sr Embedded Software Architect. Dates Employed: Jun 2005 — Apr 2014
Education:
- DeVry University-Texas. Degree Name — Bachelor’s degree. Field Of Study — Computer Engineering Technology. Grade Dean’s List, GPA 4.0
Igor M. Coelho — Co-founder, NeoResearch, Researcher & professor
Experience:
- Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro — Professor. Dates Employed: May 2015 — Present
- Universidade Federal Fluminense — Doctor. Dates Employed: Mar 2011 — Present
Education:
- Universidade Federal Fluminense
Thomas Saunders — Author, neo-python and neo-boa
Experience:
- Nash — Co Founder. Dates Employed: Nov 2017 — Present
- City of Zion — Co-Founder. Dates Employed: Jun 2017 — Present
- iDi — Institute for Design Innovation — Lead Software Developer. Dates Employed: Dec 2015 — Mar 2018
- Modern Carpentry LLC — Application Developer. Dates Employed: Jul 2013 — Dec 2015
- GroundSource — Lead Software Engineer. Dates Employed: Jan 2013 — Nov 2015
Education:
- University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Degree Name — Bachelor of Arts. Field Of Study — Philosophy of Language
Vitor Nazario Coelho — Co-founder, NeoResearch, Researcher
Education:
- Universidade Federal Fluminense
- Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
- Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto
Jaime Kindelan Alonso — Co-founder, Red4Sec, IT security consultant and analyst
Experience:
- City of Zion — IT Security Analyst. Dates Employed: Sep 2017 — Present
- Red4Sec — Co-Founder. Dates Employed: Mar 2017 — Present
- Fwhibbit — Collaborator of the Fwhibbit IT Security Blog. Dates Employed: 2016 — Present
- Rooted — Organizer RootedCON. Dates Employed Jan 2018 — May 2018
- The Security Sentinel — Pentest Team Manager. Dates Employed: Jan 2017 — Apr 2018
Education:
- EC-Council University. Degree Name — CEH. Certified Ethical Hacking
- University of Nevada-Reno. Degree Name — ESL Program
- The Security Sentinel. Degree Name — CHEE. Certified Ethical Hacking Expert
Ashley Rolleston — Co-founder, City of Zion
Experience:
- City of Zion — Co-Founder, Developer. Dates Employed: Jul 2017 — Present
- James Fisher Marine Services Ltd — Software Engineer. Dates Employed: Jan 2015 — Nov 2017
- Guardian Media Group — Property Services Division — Web Developer. Dates Employed: Nov 2010 — Dec 2014
- Bit Systems Ltd. — Software Engineer. Dates Employed: 2007 — Oct 2010
- Absolute Software Ltd — Director, Embedded Software Engineer. Dates Employed: 2003–2006
Education:
- University of Exeter. Degree Name — BSc (Hons). Field Of Study — Computer Science
Neo Global Development (NGD) Key Members
Hongfei Da 达鸿飞 — Founder, NEO, Co-Chair of NEO Foundation, CEO of NGD
Experience:
- Onchain — Founder & CEO. Dates Employed: Dec 2016 — Present
- 上海氦氪互联网金融信息服务有限公司 — CEO. Dates Employed: Apr 2015 — Dec 2016
- IntPass Consulting — CEO. Dates Employed: Jan 2005 — Dec 2013
Education:
- South China University of Technology. Degree Name — Bachelor of Arts (B.A.). Field Of Study — Technology and English
John Wang 王佳超 — Eco Growth Director of NGD
Experience:
- Accenture — Consultant. Dates Employed: Aug 2012 — Present
Education:
- Monash University. Degree Name — Master’s degree. Field Of Study — International Business.
- 澳大利亚蒙纳士大学. Degree Name — Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.). Field Of Study — Accounting.
Yuan Gao 高原 — Marketing Director of NGD
Experience:
- The Beast — Business Director. Dates Employed: Feb 2017 — Jun 2018
- 好奇心日报｜QDaily — Operation Director. Dates Employed: Jun 2015 — Dec 2016
- Nuevo Co. — Co-Founder. Dates Employed: Aug 2013 — Apr 2015
- China Renaissance Capital Investment — Summer Associate. Dates Employed: Jun 2012 — Sep 2012
Education:
- Columbia University in the City of New York. Degree Name — Master of International Affairs. Field Of Study — International Finance and Economic Policy
- University of Georgia. Degree Name — Master’s Degree. Field Of Study — Geographic Information Science
- ORISE Young Scholar Fellowship (2008) — Nanjing University. Degree Name — Bachelor’s Degree. Field Of Study — Geographic Information Science
Lemonie Gao 高童文 — Senior Manager of HR & Administrative
Experience:
- Optiver Asia Pacific — Internal Talent Advisor. Dates Employed: Jul 2015 — Jun 2018
- Bain & Company — Recruiter. Dates Employed: Apr 2014 — Jul 2015
- eBay — Talent Acquisition and HRBP assistant. Dates Employed: Apr 2011 — Mar 2014
Education:
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Degree Name — Bachelor of Economics. Field Of Study — International Economics and Trade
Neo Community Contributors
- Fábio César Canesin — Co-Founder, City of Zion
- Tyler B Adams — Co-Founder, City of Zion
- Fabian Wahle — Co-Founder, City of Zion Founder, NSPCC
- Dean Jeffs — Founder, NEO News Today
- Chris Hager — Developer, City of Zion
- Luciano Engel — Co-Founder, City of Zion
- Ethan Fast — Co-Founder, City of Zion
- Alan Fong — Co-Founder, City of Zion
- Erik van den Brink — Developer, City of Zion
- Alex Dicarlo — Founder, Neotracker Founder, NEO·ONE
- Dean van Dugteren — Developer and workshop host/instructor
- Anthony De Meulemeester — Creator and project maintainer of neo-go and neo-storm
- Liu Yongxin 刘永新 — Co-Founder, NewEconoLabs
- Peter Lin — Founder, Alienworks
- Andrei Terentiev — Co-Founder, O3 Labs
- Apisit Toompakdee — Co-Founder, O3 Labs
- Brett Rhodes- Editor, NEO News Today
- Guilherme Sperb Machado — Founder, neow3j
Partnerships
Ontology
On May 14th, 2018, Neo Foundation and Ontology Foundation signed Memorandum of Understanding, concerning strategy and technology integration. Ontology is a distributed trust network that focuses on digital identity, data exchange and other trust collaboration scenarios. Both Neo and Ontology share a common technical understanding and vision, and both wish to promote blockchain technology and its applications.
Neo and Ontology together provide compliance-ready, regulatable protocols to global developers. These protocols are supported by NeoVM with exceptional finality and a smart contract system with a robust and stable infrastructure-level network.
As such, the Neo Foundation and the Ontology Foundation have agreed to cooperate as follows:
Key Cooperation Areas:
1. Neo brings a mature and complete smart contract platform as well as distributed network infrastructure services to the table. Ontology will provide digital identity, data exchange services and other customized services.
2. Smart Contracts: Neo and Ontology will work together to build a smart contract ecosystem, fully support the development and adoption of NeoVM and NeoContract, and collaborate on developing smart contract open standards.
3. Data Integration: Both parties will provide standardized technology interfaces (APIs, SDKs, etc.), and share and communicate development achievements and research results.
4. Cross-chain: Both parties will push forward with cross-chain research, with the eventual goal of producing integrable mainnets.
Shared Resources:
1. Neo and Ontology will together set up a joint taskforce (comprised of representatives from both parties) dedicated to realizing the goals specified above and to moving forward on other relevant projects.
2. Jointly providing funding to relevant research institutions. Funding will be earmarked for academic research dedicated to exploring blockchain technology development, including but not limited to consensus algorithms, encryption algorithms, cross-chain protocols, and formal verification. Other communities, institutions and individuals that share the same interest in blockchain protocols are more than encouraged to join in these funding initiatives.
After signing the MoU, Neo Foundation and Ontology Foundation soon announced to co-fund a Joint Task Force with a total capital contribution of RMB 4 million. The Joint Task Force will press ahead with the development of API standardization, a sharing ecosystem of smart contract, building open standards for smart contract, and cross-chain technology innovation.
The Joint Task Force is made up of over 10 people, most of whom are core developers from Neo Global Development (NGD) and Ontology, along with some selected community members.
In the following months, the Joint Task Force was dedicated to the API standardization and a shared ecosystem of smart contract.
On July 18th, 2019, during a town hall meeting, Neo announced its partnership with Ontology, a Chinese public blockchain platform, to build an open cross-chain platform and establish the foundation for next-gen Internet. As a new era of blockchain adoption approaches, the partnership will facilitate the industry’s accelerated growth by leveraging both parties’ strengths to introduce an efficient and inclusive interoperability protocol. Based on both parties’ leading positions, this partnership marks an industry-wide milestone.
To fully deploy the capabilities of interoperability protocols, Neo and Ontology will recalibrate their respective strategic focuses to fully utilizing interoperability protocols. As such, Neo will focus on developing protocols and components to support a full spectrum of digital assets while Ontology will continue to build a future-proofed, decentralized identity framework.
TomoChain
Neo and TomoChain, a public blockchain with smart contract functionality, have announced a strategic partnership on November 24th, 2019. The two entities aim to “[leverage] their respective strengths to accelerate ecosystem development” by attracting users and talented developers.
The public blockchain platforms believe they can enhance both ecosystems by offering “events designed to educate and encourage developers to build dApps on both TomoChain and Neo.” A primary goal of these events is to help developers gain end-users by building, localizing, and accessing distribution channels.
Celer Network
This September, Neo has announced its latest partnership with Celer Network, the advanced layer-2 scaling platform.
Neo will integrate Celer Network’s layer-2 scaling technology to significantly expand the scalability and usability of its dApps. Meanwhile, Celer will benefit from the vigorous march of NEO 2.0 and tapping into Neo’s diverse dApps ecosystem. The cooperation has started and the initial smart contract support is scheduled to be completed in Q4 2019. To help power Celer’s State Guardian Network to secure off-chain states, Neo Foundation is committed to staking CELR tokens and aims to become one of the major nodes on the Celer Network.
nahmii
This October, Neo has announced a new partnership with nahmii, a Layer-2 scaling protocol for the Ethereum blockchain, to achieve its goal of improving scalability and interoperability by 2020.
The agreement will also be instrumental in achieving even lower fees and faster transactions. Nahmii will also act as a bridge between the Neo and the Ethereum blockchains, allowing them to work closely together.
The next step for Neo will then be to achieve interoperability with Bitcoin’s (via RSK) blockchain, and nahmii will be working towards this.
The nahmii protocol, active on Ethereum since 2018, is a second-level layer that helps blockchains increase their scalability. In essence, nahmii uses smart contracts to manage onchain transactions and then move most of them to a secondary offchain layer, making the primary layer more streamlined.
When nahmii will be active on Neo it will allow atomic swaps between ETH and Neo. Later on, the same thing will be possible with Bitcoin using Rootstock.
gumi Cryptos Inc.
On August 22nd, 2019, Neo and gumi Crypto Inc., the consolidated subsidiary of gumi Inc., entered into a strategic partnership agreement to provide Japanese market entry support for NEO, a decentralized public blockchain platform based in China. Leveraging their respective leading capabilities, Neo and gumi Cryptos will promote the Japanese blockchain market by pushing forward technological advancements and new applications.
Swisscom
August 5th, 2019, Neo and Swisscom Blockchain, a subsidiary of Swisscom, the largest telecoms provider in Switzerland, jointly launched Seraph ID, a self-sovereign identity (SSI) framework built on the Neo blockchain.
Through their partnership, Neo and Swisscom Blockchain are advancing a decentralized platform to empower users to take ownership of their identities.
As a component of NeoID, Seraph ID functions as a set of tools which empowers Dapp developers and users to leverage Self-Sovereign identity capabilities. By offering a comprehensive toolset such as libraries and smart contract templates, Seraph ID enables SSI usage for end-users as well as Neo ecosystem developers and start-ups. Moreover, a number of large-scale commercial use cases for Seraph ID’s functionalities are currently in the development pipeline.
Moving forward, Neo and Swisscom Blockchain will continue developing Seraph ID into a leading industry standard while leveraging SSI applications to accelerate large-scale commercial usage for blockchain. As per their roadmap, both parties will coordinate to develop an agent to agent communication layer, an offline wallet for identity owners, and Neo DID universal resolvers. Designed as an open source project, both parties welcome the Neo ecosystem to contribute and test out Seraph ID.
TECHFUND Inc.
On August 8th, 2019, Neo and TECHFUND Inc., a Japanese tech accelerator supporting startups globally, has announced the partnership in its accelerator program and blockchain development tool “ACCEL BaaS”.
TECHFUND has supported startups and more than 30 large company’s new business projects and provided Blockchain accelerator program. Now, companies adopted in this program have opportunities to obtain technology support from Neo.
At the same time, TECHFUND has released Neo features in ACCEL BaaS, a Blockchain development tool which TECHFUND developed through its past support, as below:
- ACCEL BaaS starts to support Neo. This leads to smooth implementation of NEO into various applications without technical knowledge or environment for Neo. Especially, its “Contract Template” and “Contract Marketplace” are notable in that TECHFUND provides Neo contracts as templates for blockchain use cases and people can use them with customization using GUI.
- Neo provides the fee (GAS) required to use Neo in Testnet. Previously developers could take time to get fee(gas), which now aren’t necessary, therefore you can expect the speed of development will increase.
CertiK
On August 1st, 2018, Neo announced the partnership with Certik, formal verification platform for smart contracts and blockchain ecosystems, to enhance the security of its platform. Apart from smart contract verification, security auditor CertiK will also provide a tailored solution to verify Neo’s digital assets and digital identity. T
NGD Research Partnership with Arqit
Neo Global Development (NGD) has been pushing forward with relevant research on quantum-proof technology, represented by NeoQS.
On October 17th, 2018, Neo Global Development announced a partnership with Arqit on quantum resistance research with a shared vision of facilitating blockchain industry development.
Arqit is one of the leading projects in quantum resistant technology. It is now developing a quantum resistant blockchain eco-system for enterprise applications, making modifications on the open source Corda code base and incorporating the unique Proof of Performance Protocol for the first time. Also playing a part is quantum encryption, developed in partnership with a consortium of European companies and universities, and an associated research foundation.
VIBE
Neo has announced a new partnership with VIBE, blockchain gaming company, meaning players of the VIBE or DIE, blockchain-based first-person shooter game, will soon be able to use the Neo token in-game.
The new partnership means that both Neo and Gas will be integrated into the VIBENet chain. VIBENet is a layer-two solution designed for the “next era of gaming”.
VIBENet is able to facilitate “instant atomic microtransactions” with no gas fees — something it terms as a “necessary component” for the next era of blockchain gaming.
To begin this new partnership, Neo will be integrated into VIBE’s first-person shooter game VIBE or DIE, which is built on the VIBENet chain.
NEOSPCC
On June 28th, 2019, the Neo St. Petersburg Competence Center (NEOSPCC), a community-based technology institution that supports the Neo core and ecosystem development, was voted into joining the NEO TestNet as a consensus node operator.
KPN
Neo consensus node page released recently was a major step towards decentralization. Now, KPN has been officially voted in as a NEO MainNet consensus node, indicating a further step towards decentralization. Previously, 6 of the 7 mainnet consensus nodes were hosted by Neo Foundation while 1 was hosted by CoZ. KPN is a Dutch telecom company that offers landline phone service, cellular phone service, and internet access to over 30 million customers across Western Europe. Read more on KPN here.
Neo launched blockchain course in St Petersburg State University
Neo also supports blockchain education all over the world. On November 20th, 2019, Neo announced it has launched a new course titled “Software Development Using Neo Blockchain Technology” in the St Petersburg State University in St Petersburg, Russia.
EcoBoost Partners
Neo is investing USD $100 million through its EcoBoost program to accelerate the realization of large-scale commercial blockchain solutions by empowering developers and projects in the ecosystem. Working in tandem with various partners, the EcoBoost program provides full life-cycle support for high-potential projects.
Liquidity:
Wallets:
Media:
Channels:
Ecosystem:
Security:
Ecosystem
With thriving partners and projects, the Neo ecosystem is slowly growing and developing.
Neo has more than 10 developer communities globally to support Neo infrastructure building and lower the entry barrier for Neo development.
Ecosystem is the vitality of the open source community. In order to achieve the goal of an intelligent economic network, Neo is committed to the development of its ecosystem, providing mature development tools, improving development of documents, organizing education and training activities, and providing financial support. The team supports the following Neo-based applications and ecology and to reward improvements to the design of the experience:
- Node Program
- A fully functioning Full node PC program
- A light node PC program with a better user experience
- Web / Android / iOS clients that do not need to synchronize with the blockchain
- Hardware wallet
- Blockchain Explorer
- SDK Development Kit
Support Java / Kotlin, .NET C # / VB, JavaScript / Typescript, Python, Go
- Smart Contract Compiler and IDE Plugin
- C# / VB.Net / F#, Visual Studio
- Java / Kotlin, Eclipse
- C / C++ / GO
- JavaScript / TypeScript
- Python / Ruby
- Decentralized Applications
- Smart fund
- AI-assisted legal smart contract
- Social networking
- Automated tokens liquidity providers
- Decentralized exchange
- Secure communication protocol
- Data exchange market
- Intellectual property trading market
- Prediction market
- Advertising market
- Hashpower market
- NeoGas market
According to the Neo website, its infrastructure is powering over 100 DApps enabling real use cases for digital assets.
The stateofdapps.com shows 17 of them:
The dappradar.com shows 11 Dapps in Neo ecosystem. None of them are in the top 100 by the number of daily users, and only one of them (Switcheo Network) is in the top 100 by daily $ transaction volume.
Check out the Neo DApp List here.
Use case
Digital Assets
Neo aims to convert traditional assets into digital ones using smart contracts. These digital assets will be decentralized and will be protected by law using digital certificates on the blockchain, which in turn, will guarantee trust.
Digital Identity
Neo will enable the creation of identity information of organizations, individuals, and entities in electronic form. These identities will be usable via multi-factor authentication mechanisms such as facial recognition, fingerprints, voice recognition, and SMS.
DApps
Neo will support the development of decentralized applications by continuously supporting and developing more mature development tools and techniques. Some of the examples of DApps are smart funds, AI-assisted legal smart contracts, and decentralized exchanges.
Common DApp use-cases:
- Games
- Marketplace
- Social apps
- Supply chain
- Digital collectibles
- Voting
- Decentralized Exchanges
- Gambling
- Finance
- Development
- Media
- Storage
- Identity
Social metrics
Neo is one of the key market influencers with more than 500,000 followers over international social media channels.
GitHub metrics:
Neo has 18 public repositories. Overall, the project has frequent commits to the collection of repositories.
Developer activity (from Coinlib.io):
Social media activity:
NEO Bitcoin Talk and Discord — Discussion on technology, price, roadmap.
There are also WeChat and Weibo official channels.
Unofficial Telegram group — Discussions on price, possible partnerships, etc. About 10 thousand members.
Other unofficial telegram channels:
- @Neoecokorea2 (Korean)
- @neo_de (German)
- @NeoFrench (French)
- @NEOSmartEconomyITA (Italian)
- @neo_vn (Vietnamese)
- @Neo_Blockchain_TR (Turkish)
Markets and volume
NEO
Information from Coinmarketcap.com:
Information from Coinlib.io:
GAS
Information from Coinmarketcap.com:
Information from Coinlib.io:
Competitors
Other platforms for consumer Dapps: Ethereum, TRON, STEEM, Waves, Ontology, Nebulas, Cardano, Quantum, Lisk, Nuls.
Roadmap
Roadmap of NEO 3.0 Development:
Development Plan
The development of NEO 3.0 began in Q4 of 2018 and is expected to be completed in Q2 of 2020. For quality assurance purposes, a review phase will be set up, during which imperfect features will be removed and necessary new features will be rigorously tested. Due to this security-focused approach, a several month delays may occur before the official launch of NEO 3.0.
NEO 3.0’s roadmap includes some architectural improvements that will greatly improve Neo’s performance and stability. Some of these improvements are not compatible with NEO 2.x. Therefore, NEO 3.0 will launch as a new blockchain network from a genesis block. However, before the launch of the NEO 3.0 MainNet, the team will have two concurrent development branches for NEO 2.x and NEO 3.0.
Most of the new features in NEO 3.0 are backwards-compatible and will, therefore, be ported to NEO 2.x, which guarantees that the majority of development efforts for NEO 2.x DApps will be valid even if deployed to NEO 3.0. After the launch of the NEO 3.0 MainNet, the team will also provide funding and technical support to assist developers in the migration of their DApps from NEO 2.x to NEO 3.0.
In Q2 of 2019, they launched a NEO 3.0 TestNet for development purposes. It was deployed to the TestNet to allow developers to test their DApps. After NEO 3.0 is fully developed, this TestNet will be shut down and replaced by a new TestNet that will be identical to the NEO 3.0 MainNet.
In Q1 of 2020, the team will launch the migration plan.
About Migration
Migration of DApps and users from NEO 2.x to NEO 3.0 is inevitable. At present, the features of NEO 3.0 are still under development, with improvements and minor modifications likely to occur. Therefore, it would be illogical to devise a comprehensive migration plan at this stage. However, the primary principles are set as follows:
a) Data and transaction records on NEO 2.x will be permanently retained.
b) The migration will be simulated in the TestNet to ensure a smooth transition.
c) The costs incurred during the migration process, such as contract redeployment and testing, will be reimbursed by the Neo Foundation.
d) The NGD team will provide comprehensive technical support for the migration of DApps.
e) Token holders will need to swap tokens to activate new ones on NEO 3.0.
f) The users of the exchanges will not be affected.
g) In order to encourage users and DApps to migrate, an early adopter incentive plan will be devised and implemented.
Check out Neo 3.0 changelog to track what’s happening.
Token Mechanics
Economic Model
Neo has two native tokens, NEO (abbreviated symbol NEO) and NeoGas (abbreviated symbol GAS).
NEO, with a total of 100 million tokens, represents the right to manage the network. Management rights include voting for bookkeeping, Neo network parameter changes, and so on. The minimum unit of NEO is 1 and tokens cannot be subdivided.
GAS is the fuel token for the realization of Neo network resource control, with a maximum total limit of 100 million. The Neo network charges for the operation and storage of tokens and smart contracts, thereby creating economic incentives for bookkeepers and preventing the abuse of resources. The minimum unit of GAS is 0.00000001.
In the genesis block of the Neo network, 100 million NEOs were generated, GAS has not yet been generated. 100 million GAS, corresponding to the 100 million NEO, will be generated through a decay algorithm in about 22 years time to address holding NEO. If NEO is transferred to a new address, the subsequent GAS generated will be credited to the new address.
The Neo network will set a threshold by voting to exempt GAS from a certain amount of transfer transactions and smart contract operations to enhance the user experience. When a large amount of spam transactions occur, NeoID can be used to prioritize transactions and smart contracts with qualified identities. Transactions and smart contracts with no qualifying digital identities can get priority by paying GAS.
Neo uses dBFT consensus which yields 15–20 second block times. There are currently seven consensus nodes, five of which are run by the Neo Foundation. These nodes are delegated by the network and earn GAS through the block reward. Other nodes are simply users of the network. User nodes can earn GAS by holding NEO in a wallet, a process similar to staking.
Each year around 2 million blocks will be generated and the initial generation will be 8 GAS per block. There will be an annual reduction of 1 GAS per block, per year, to coincide with the passing of every 2 million blocks. The reduction will continue down to just 1 GAS per block and will be held at that rate for around 22 years. After the 44 millionth block the total GAS generated will have reached 100 million and from this point there will be no further generation of GAS from new blocks.
According to this release curve, 16% of the GAS will be minted in the first year, 52% of the GAS will be minted in the first four years, and 80% of the GAS will be minted in the first 12 years. These GAS will be distributed proportionally in accordance with the NEO holding ratio, recorded in the corresponding addresses. NEO holders can initiate a claim transaction at any time and claim these GAS tokens at their holding addresses.
NEO 3.0 will have more detailed discussions on the incentive models of the network. There will be continuous updates in the future.
Check out How To Become Neo Consensus Node.
Governance mechanism
The governance of Neo’s network currently consists of two methods: chain governance and off-chain governance.
Chain governance: NEO token holders are the network owners and managers, managing the network through voting in the network, using the GAS generated from NEO to utilize the functions in the network. NEO tokens can be transferred.
Off-chain governance: Neo Council consists of the founding members of the Neo project, under which the management committee, technical committee and the secretariat, respectively, are responsible for strategic decision-making, technical decision-making and specific implementation. The Neo Council is responsible to the Neo community for the promotion and development of Neo ecosystem as its primary objective.
Token Metrics
NEO distribution:
NEO’s 100 million tokens are divided into two portions. The first portion is 50 million tokens distributed proportionally to supporters of Neo during the crowdfunding. This portion has been distributed.
The second portion is 50 million NEO managed by the Neo Council to support Neo’s long-term development, operation and maintenance and ecosystem. The NEO in this portion has a lockout period of 1 year and is unlocked only after October 16th, 2017. This portion will not enter the exchanges and is only for long-term support of Neo projects. The plans for it are as below:
- 10 million tokens (10% total) will be used to motivate Neo developers and members of the Neo Council
- 10 million tokens (10% total) will be used to motivate developers in the Neo ecosystem
- 15 million tokens (15% total) will be used to cross-invest in other blockchain projects, which are owned by the Neo Council and are used only for Neo projects
- 15 million (15% total) will be retained as contingency
- The annual use of NEO in principle shall not exceed 15 million tokens
Check out Neo Foundation 2019 Mid-year Financial Report.
On June 30th, 2019 Neo Foundation’s assets included the following:
- 43,664,133 NEO and 4,123,533 GAS, valued at US$745,750,676;
- Non-NEO assets including BTC, ETH, ONT, ONG, USD, and CNY, valued at US$78,621,107;
- Hedge funds with a total valuation (via cost method) of 4,313 BTC, or US$46,658,305.
Total valuation of the listed assets on June 30th, 2019 stood at just over US$871 million.
GAS distribution:
GAS is generated with each new block. The initial total amount of GAS is zero. With the increasing rate of new block generation, the total limit of 100 million GAS will be achieved in about 22 years. The interval between each block is about 15–20 seconds, and 2 million blocks are generated in about one year.
Summary
Team: Mainly consists of specialists with tech background. No team members graduated from the top universities, or members with working experience in the top companies.
Idea: An open distributed network that combines digital assets, digital identities, and smart contracts.
Development stage: Mainnet. Transition to NEO 3.0 is expected to be completed in Q2 of 2020. No decentralization.
Whitepaper: Well composed, but outdated. No information on NEO 3.0.
Roadmap: Neo development team hasn’t been on time for some of the communicated milestones. The features, promised earlier, is now to be implemented in the third version (NEO 3.0).
Neo is an open source project that utilizes blockchain technology and digital identities to digitize and automate the management of assets using smart contracts. Using a distributed network, it aims to create a “Smart Economy” by building infrastructures of the Next Generation Internet and creating a solid foundation for mass blockchain adoption.
Neo proposes an algorithm named dBFT, which combines the characteristics of dPoS. The network is quite centralized: there are currently seven consensus nodes, five of which are run by the Neo Foundation.
Neo is often known as the “Ethereum of China”. While similar to Ethereum, it has some interesting features which deserve a close examination. The biggest advantage that it has over Ethereum is the relatively low barrier to entry. Since the developers don’t have to learn a new language to create smart contracts it can definitely look appealing.
Nevertheless, the project is still inferior to the Ethereum in terms of the number of DApps in its ecosystem. While there are about thousands DApps in the Ethereum ecosystem, Neo infrastructure is powering only a hundred dApps enabling real use cases for digital assets. According to dappradar.com, there are 11 DApps in Neo ecosystem, none of them are in the top 100 by the number of daily users, and one of them (Switcheo Network) is in the top 100 by daily $ transaction volume.
However, Neo actively onboard partners who are able to launch DApps, and increase the ecosystem further. Now the project is investing USD $100 million through its EcoBoost program to accelerate the realization of large-scale commercial blockchain solutions by empowering developers and projects in the ecosystem.
Also, the project continues to improve, the development is in the full swing. The cornerstone of the Neo team’s efforts now is NEO 3.0, which will be a robust blockchain implementation with high throughput, enhanced stability and security, an optimized smart contract system, and a feature-packed infrastructure set for diverse business application scenarios. NEO 3.0 will launch as a new blockchain network from a genesis block. The development of NEO 3.0 began in Q4 of 2018 and is expected to be completed in Q2 of 2020. Who knows, maybe with the implementation of the new features Neo will soon be able reach the level of its competitors.
