I usually don’t care much about articles that compare one platform to another; the writer will always selectively present data that puts their own platform in good light. It’s all fair game. However, I refuse to stand by when people are spreading FUD on purpose because they happen to be invested in another project.

If you want your platform to gain more traction, then build on your technology. Competition is good, that’s how advancements and improvements are being accomplished. If you have a better technology, then please write an article about it, with supporting data on how your technology is better. However, if your strategy is to spread FUD on other projects with misinformation, then I lose respect for you. Continue to poke the bear and I will write that article based on data, comparing NEO to the project that you hold so dear.

“NEO is incredibly centralized. The entire network only has 13 validating nodes. Developers whitelist who can run validating nodes”

If you intend to make claims like this, then please at least read the whitepaper first. There are 7 consensus nodes at this moment, for reasons explained in the whitepaper (for example balancing decentralization with performance). These consensus nodes are voted in by NEO holders. There is no whitelisting; whoever got the votes becomes consensus node. In fact, two external nodes have already been consensus nodes (explained later), confirming that the voting system work perfectly fine.

Your picture is from http://monitor.cityofzion.io/, which will show seed nodes (not consensus nodes) as “offline” for a brief second when loading the page. Pure intentional misleading picture. NEO has 100% uptime since MainNet was launched over one year ago.

You are right that NEO is too centralized, and we are very aware. That’s also why we have started the decentralization process. There will be more information in the coming weeks.

“The whole point of cryptocurrencies is a decentralized validation system where anyone can operate nodes and validate transactions in the network.”

NEO is not a currency. Moreover, what you are explaining is a slow network with intention to avoid regulation. Not sure if we failed to communicate it clearly enough, but NEO Smart Economy is a fast network that operates alongside regulation. Therefore, we have a system to balance the number of consensus nodes so that we get the benefits of a decentralized network while still being as fast as possible. Again, this information is available in our documentation.

“NEO’s blockchain disappeared for several hours in October (for manual checks)”

This paragraph is just pure misinformation. NEO did not “disappear”, and the blockchain did not go “dark”. We unlocked 15 million NEO out of 50 million that has never been touched. If you know how blockchain technology work, then you know that all these 50 million will be sent and 35 million will be returned as “change”. The wallet had more than one address and the “change” tokens were returned to a change address which was not set to vote as the original address. Thus, two external nodes that had voted for themselves got selected as consensus nodes, and these nodes were offline. It was a human error and we all agree that NEO is too centralized at this moment. You clearly read the blog where we explained how it happened, so why did you leave out that information?

It is explained in our latest monthly report: https://neo.org/blog/details/3016.

“NEO’s GitHub has alarmingly sparse activity”

You are looking at the core project that is live on production. I would be more concerned about the state of the project if a MainNet is launched and you still do daily protocol level code changes. The code you see there is the code that is deployed.

A better comparison is to look at number of forks, where NEO has almost five times as many as the project that you hold so dear. NEO has worked strictly with forks and a few individuals from NEO Council and community with merge permission to the main repository. The advantage with this approach is that we can roll out and upgrade consensus nodes faster and with better stability. In a “normal” project, you would see more commits and less forks. There are those with opinion that we should be less strict and use a more “normal” process. We are open to change when there are good arguments behind, “people think there is sparse activity” is however not a good enough argument. You can still follow the progress if you look further than number of commits on the master branch.

“NEO only has 6 smart contracts operating on the entire blockchain”

You do know that Smart Contract deployment has only been available since August and that it costs 500 GAS to deploy one? There are several hundreds of smart contracts on TestNet and private nets. Those willing to pay the GAS fee will make it to MainNet, which is a good entry barrier to prevent useless smart contracts and transactions. Take a look again in two or three months, then we can compare growth percentage with the project you support (you seem to like selective data comparison).

“The East has almost no interest in NEO — 90% of NEO’s volume comes from the West”

Some inside information you have there, apparently you know that Bittrex, Bitfinex, and Binance, all have 100% Western users. Great insider statistics. Maybe you can help them develop their Asian market?

“NEO attracts scammy ICOs and dApps”

Quite the opposite, it costs 500 GAS to deploy a Smart Contract on NEO, forcing projects to commit financially before starting a project. Moreover, we have in my own personal opinion the best crypto community out there, analyzing projects both on our own and other platforms based on available facts and not based on marketing alone. They even criticize NEO Council when needed, so that we focus on what the community think is important.

“NEO makes announcements of announcements”

Yes, we have a very eventful weekend with Ontology sneak-peak yesterday and NEON Exchange whitepaper release tomorrow. On top of this, we will present something new tomorrow. We do not want to hype, but we also want the community to be aware of the progress NEO and our ecosystem is making. It’s a balance, and it’s up to the community to judge.

“NEO is a blockchain built purely on promises and rumours. There is no substance.”

Compared to what, sending satellites to outer space as marketing stunt? Please let me know which promise and rumor that you are referring to and I will be happy to address it.