One of the most well known stories in Crypto this year was of Antshares, also known as “The Chinese Ethereum”. It was later rebranded as “NEO” and reached a $2 Billion market cap in July. Indeed it was China’s first open source public chain project. It was launched in 2014 and kept a very low profile until rumors started spreading about it’s capabilities on the Blockchain within China. At it’s peak, it hit a high of over $50 per Token. Mania had spread around Neo and it’s Reddit group had a massive following. One day, it crashed.
“Technologies such as P2P networking, dBFT consensus, digital certificates, Superconducting Transactions, and cross-chain interoperability the NEO blockchain enables management of smart assets in an efficient, safe and legally binding manner”
As promising as the tech was and is behind NEO, it was only a matter of time until it came to a speeding halt.
Regulations in China?
The state of Cryptocurrency has been under control of the people who use it, not a central authority. This is part of the appeal of these projects to many long time Bitcoin enthusiast. Given that the space is in a free range like state, the Chinese authorities decided to step in and shut down ICO (Initial Coin Offering) operations until new procedures take place. Red Pulse, NEO’s premier ICO project, and it’s first has currently been postponed. Other projects like Tron have also had to pause until these issues can be resolved. China will not ignore the growing FinTech culture and I do anticipate this all ending very soon. Chinese tech firms and ICO’s in total raised nearly $1 Billion dollars in 2 months this summer.
Does NEO have a future?
It has clearly been proven that NEO is a strong project capable of creating a massively attractive brand with a huge following as well as raising over $2 Billion dollars in a very short period of time. The Cryptocurrency market is highly competitive and at this point has become a regionally competitive sport in FinTech. ICO’s may be popping up right and left, and this may cause some concern to the powers that be, but it will continue to move forward. It is inevitable that both developers and investors have put incredible effort into the space and it’s not going anywhere. I do see a future ahead for NEO and as of today, the market cap has been steadily rising. When Red Pulse begins it’s ICO phase, and other projects building on top of NEO we will be seeing activity in NEO awaken and then again can it be called “The Chinese Ethereum.”
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