CCX012 - NEO 101 - Blockchain Ecosystem and Cryptocurrency - What, Why and How

CryptochainX

What is NEO?
NEO calls itself future proof smart economy and promises to do much more than smart contracts. NEO platform has two cryptocurrencies NEO and GAS.

Who created NEO?
Neo was created by Erik Zhang and the blockchain development company called OnChain in 2014. At time of its launch in 2014 it was called AntShares, in 2017 AntShares was rebranded to NEO.

What are the benefits of NEO?
Up to 10,000 transactions per second are possible with NEO
NEO platform is coded in Java, C# and Python which makes its easier to adopt than the platforms built with their own language like Soliday or Vyper.
Smart Contracts - Contracts that execute and run themselves based on the rules of the code
In future NEO will be able to execute smart contracts across other blockchain platforms

How does NEO work?
Team behind NEO believes that every assets should be digitized along with the individual identities for legal authentic rights

Neo is a blockchain platform that can host decentralized applications can be built. NEO is capable of doing asset transfers, smart contracts and digital identity verification. However, Neo wants to be more than just a platform, Neo wants to be the Smart Economy of the future.

There are three foundational components to the NEO platform NeoX, NeoFS and NeoQ

NeoX - It allows for cross blockchain transactions
NeoFS - Is the decentralized file storage based on DHT (Distributed Hash Table)
NeoQ - is the cryptographic technology to make NEO quantum proof

The NEO blockchain has two cryptocurrencies NEO and GAS, they both work on proof of stake consensus. NEO unlike other cryptocurrencies cannot be split below 1 NEO (unit).

GAS on other hand can be divided into many smaller units and its responsible for execution of the smart contracts on the blockchain. GAS units collectively make a block and the blocks combined make 1 NEO.

NEO network votes and selects the consensus nodes. Consensus nodes are elected individuals who validate transactions and set transaction fees. If they are not working in the favour of the network, the consensus nodes can be removed from their role. While consensus nodes provide their support they are paid with GAS.

NEO smart contracts consists of NeoVM, NeoContract API and SDK (development tools)

Neo 3.0 is currently in development and according to NEO team in this version they want to further improve the transactions per second. With the support of NeoVM make smart contracts executable on different blockchain platforms.

What can you do with NEO?
NEO can be used in many ways, few of the examples are:
Copyright & IP protection
Digitization of Assets and deployment of smart contracts
Identification digitization
Peer to Peer money lending
Social media
Advertising and marketing

For further information and insights on NEO, check https://cryptochainx.com