Chinese smart contract platform NEO will have divisible units according to an update in their upcoming whitepaper. The CEO also discussed non-fungibility, where each coin is unique, and said it might be a new strategy for NEO. The coin has also led a recent bounce in the market as the total cryptocurrency market cap rose by $20 billion with NEO rising 18%.

In an interview at the Blockchain Connect Conference at the San Jose Convention Center, co-founder and CEO Da Hongfei told Ran Neu-Ner about the new whitepaper updates. He said that although it's not ready, there are some important changes.

Hongfei said: "The NEO token used to be indivisible. It caused some troubles. We are trying to change it so in the future the NEO token will be divisible just like Ether or Bitcoin. That's one of the biggest changes."

Unlike most cryptocurrencies, the NEO token has never been divisible. This means that the smallest token is 1 NEO, unlike Bitcoin which can be divided into satoshis. This has become a problem for exchanges who want to let users exchange parts of a NEO token. They have gotten around the problem by allowing users to seemingly exchange parts of a token on the exchange itself. Users are unable to send partial NEO tokens off the exchange because they are not actually divisible.

Following the development of Ethereum's non-fungible token standard, the ERC-721, the NEO CEO said that they are working on a similar standard for the NEO blockchain. This standard allows for tokens that are unique, unlike the majority of tokens which can only be separately identified by their transaction history. This means they can be used as collectables.

Hongfei said: "We have had a standard just get approved. It will be merged into our main branch. Non-fungible tokens are also a strategy for NEO. When gaming hits blockchain, you get collectables. Those collectables can be traded on blockchain so it's a perfect match."

The NEO token rose by 18% at the start of the recent hike in cryptocurrency prices and is now at a 12% increase in the past 24 hours. Its price reached $38 after a recent drop to $27. The total cryptocurrency market cap rose by $20 billion reaching a peak of $275 billion.