Startup Universal Health Coin is a Public Benefit Corporation developing an anonymous crypto token-based healthcare finance system utilizing blockchain technology as a utility to decentralize the provision and fair payment of health services worldwide. To the UHC member and the health service provider, it looks and acts like any other cash-based transaction as illustrated below in our One-pager.

However, once fully deployed UHC will be operated by the decentralized network and NOT by a central governing body such as a health plan, third-party administrator, or government.

We have been planning to use the Ethereum blockchain platform for our token and smart contract system, but we have recently been introduced to the NEO blockchain platform. Below are some pros and cons we have developed, but we would like to hear from you - both the blockchain community and our prospective members and health service provider communities. Please make comments, we appreciate your opinions.

NEO vs Ethereum - Similarities

NEO and Ethereum are both blockchain projects specifically designed to host smart contracts, ICOs, utility Token Sales and dApps in a decentralized manner. Their respective blockchains are fueled by crypto-assets (Gas in NEO, Ether in Ethereum). Both are considered to be Turing Complete with ample community backing and excellent and responsive development teams.

NEO vs Ethereum - Differences

Community Support

Ethereum is not backed by any nation’s government, but it is supported by the EEA-Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. This speaks volumes about its popularity and potential success on the world’s stage.

NEO is one of the few blockchain platforms born in China. This has become the most important factor for NEO’s popularity in Asia, making it China’s first open-source public blockchain project. NEO was created by Onchain CEO, Da HongFei, and CTO, Erik Zhang. NEO is also backed by crowdfunding platform WINGS, Microsoft, Alibaba, and various other Microsoft-like giants. Its seems as though the Chinese Government has a leaning towards NEO, inviting Da HongFei to their inaugural meeting of the Trustworthy Blockchain Alliance.

Consensus Mechanisms

Ethereum uses a Proof-of-Work as their consensus mechanism rewarding participants who solve complicated cryptographical puzzles in order to validate transactions and create new blocks.

NEO uses a delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT) consensus mechanism, which is an improved form of Proof-of-Stake where the creator of the next block is chosen via various combinations of random selection, value, worth, or age.

dBFT is believed to be more energy efficient than proof-of-work, as PoW is a very energy-intensive and expensive process. This may not be a big advantage for NEO in the long-run because we expect Ethereum to pivot to an efficient proof-of-stake mechanism as governments continue to put pressure on the amount of energy miners are using to process Ether.

Programming Language Barrier

Currently, if you want to write smart contracts and dApps on Ethereum, then you have to learn a new programming language called Solidity and while influenced by Javascript and C++ very few programmers really know this new language well increasing the cost for hiring programmers to write dApps for Ethereum.

NEO’s smart contracts and dApps can be written and compiled in C# and Java. In the future, developers will also be able to write smart contracts in Python and Go.This drastically reduces the barrier for developers around the world to support NEO.

Transaction Speed and Throughput

Ethereum can only handle 15 transactions per second.

NEO can handle 10,000 transactions per second.

Quantum Computer-Proof

Ethereum, and every other cryptocurrency thus far, is not quantum-computer-proof.

NEO is, as they describe, the only cryptocurrency quantum-computer-proof.

Quantum computers are believed to have the ability to break into and hack the cryptographic math on which blockchains are based, including Bitcoin. NEO claims that they have already developed an anti-quantum cryptography mechanism called NeoQS.

Though NEO seems to be positioning themselves to be in direct competition with Ethereum, they do have bit catching up to do for mainstream adoption. But then, no one knows what the future will hold. Ethereum and NEO each have only been in existence for three years and both projects need to deliver on their core promises to serve.

I found it interesting that Qlink will be running an ICO on both NEO and Ethereum, generating both a NEP5 and ERC20 token. Token holders will have access to Qlink's free WiFi with free data for specific content, receive a share in profits from mobile network users and also receive profits from a mining power pool embedded in Qlink’s base station. Sounds intriguing! What are your thoughts?

In terms of Universal Health Coin, we will be worldwide immediately upon full launch onto the decentralized network. Health service providers will be coming on just as rapidly as members because they want to create their smartcontracts with competitive pricing to attract UHC members to their health and wellness businesses. We need a system that will be able to handle rapid growth around the world at the same time the ramp up on transactions to match. Also, UHC's reward systems are developed to be Proof-of-Stake for participants and Proof-of-Performace for members and health service providers.

Again, please lend us your thoughts and opinions.

Be Well, DrJ

Dr. Gordon Jones is a serial entrepreneur with his creative work born through his innovation development company, Birddog.Ventures. He is Co-founder, President & COO of Universal Health Coin. Follow him above, connect with him on LinkedIn, and/or view all of DrJ's Pulse articles!



