In January 2018, NEO was trading at above $114. It was one of the most hyped coins in a white hot crypto market, and early investors in Antshares (the project’s name before it was rebranded to “NEO”) were preparing to be millionaires.

Around this time, NEO CEO Da Hongfei did an interview with Bloomberg. He warned that the crypto market was likely nearing the height of a bubble. He urged regulators to step forward to prevent a crisis for investors. He also said that, if the bubble were to pop, NEO and other cryptocurrencies focused on technology (not fast profits) would survive and thrive on the other side of the crash, just as they had in previous crypto crash-boom cycles.

We’re now a full year-and-a-half after the crypto crash of 2018. Bitcoin is more than 50% down, and most altcoins are 90% down from all-time-high prices, or more! At the time of this writing, NEO is trading at about $10, down from a height of more than $200. However, despite the price and unlike so many of its competitors, the NEO project is actually stronger than ever before.

In the post to come, we want to give a broad look at what has happened within NEO during the past 2 years. Even though NEO bagholders may be hoping for a fast reversal of fortunes, this era could actually prove to be an investment opportunity if NEO manages to make good on the promise we see when we start to look closely.

NEO Has Partially Relocated to the United States

NEO is a partially decentralized technology company. As such, it has volunteer developers all over the world, but it still maintains a strong central presence and employs essential personnel (like Eric Zhang). In its early days, NEO was based in China, and it still maintains a presence there today. However, in 2019, NEO opened a headquarters in Seattle, Washington. This move to the United States is significant in many ways.

It’s hard to be a blockchain company in China. China has strict rules about how blockchain and cryptocurrency can and cannot be used within the country, and these rules are known to literally change overnight. NEO was always very fastidious in following rules from the government, but its life in China was inherently unpredictable. Compound this uncertainty with a vulnerable Chinese economy, unrest in China’s financial center Hong Kong, and difficulty in collaborating

with international businesses, and it makes perfect sense why NEO would want to start from

scratch in the United States.

NEO Seattle Headed by ex-Microsoft Exec, John deVadoss

NEO Seattle is headed by John deVadoss, a former Microsoft executive who ran Microsoft Digital for more than a decade. In this time, the business was taken from $0 to $500,000,000+

in value, and deVadoss’s reputation as a platform builder and develop leader became legendary. deVadoss has stated in multiple interviews that he wants to turn NEO into the world’s #1 developer platform, and he has been expanding the NEO Seattle developer base aggressively.

NEO 3.0 is Coming

We are currently in the second major incarnation of NEO’s technology: NEO 2.0. This is, of course, built upon the Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance blockchain protocol introduced by core NEO developer Eric Zhang, and it features code written all the way back in the days of Antshares.

NEO 3.0 is set to launch in 2020. It features numerous under-the-hood changes and new technologies. With 3.0, NEO hopes to be the most developer-friendly technology platform under the sun, and well ahead of any of their current blockchain competitors such as Ethereum and EOS. In the meantime, NEO is aggressively pursuing interim scaling solutions, such as the one with recent partnership with Celer Network.

NEO is Very Well-Funded

One common problem among blockchain companies is running out of funding. We’ve seen it with dozens of altcoin projects from the 2017 hype cycle – projects that gobbled up millions at ICO, then burned through it all over the next 2 years of market drought.

NEO is one of the most transparent projects in the space, giving anyone and everyone a close up view of their funding reserves. You can see the Mid-year NEO Foundation Financial Report here. To make a long story short, the NEO Foundation has 43,664,133 NEO in reserve, 14,202,964 NEO of which is available to use for various purposes (another 29,461,169 NEO is

locked until future dates).

Quoting from the Report:

“The NEO held by the NF is to be used to support the long-term development of the NEO project and the growth of the NEO ecosystem. The allocation plan is listed below:…”

– 10 million NEO is in reserve to pay/motivate developers within the NEO Foundation

– 10 million NEO is reserved for developers in the NEO Ecosystem (those not within the Foundation)

– 15 million NEO is reserved to invest in “other blockchain projects”

– 15 million NEO will be held in a “contingency fund”

NEO lists the addresses at which these funds are held, so all balances are verifiable to anyone who cares to look. It’s important to note that, at this juncture almost 5 years after the Antshares launch, NEO has only spent about 6 million NEO to fund its development. This leaves over 43 million NEO for future operations, an impressive total especially after 18 months of poor market conditions.

NEO’s Technological Strength

NEO has numerous technological advantages that have been in place since its first days. These are, for the most part, still in effect or even stronger than in the past.

– NEO offers true finanality in transactions. This means that transactions cannot be reversed, a key feature not found in many other blockchains, and one that will be required for enterprises to come aboard.

– NEO is programming language agnostic. While Ethereum requires developers to learn the Solidity programming language to create applications on the platform, NEO accepts programming in all popular (and many not-so-popular) programming languages.

– NEO produces GAS, free, for all holders. GAS performs the, you guessed it, gas transaction fee function in the NEO ecosystem. For every NEO Coin you hold, you slowly get 1 GAS as the NEO sits in your wallet. GAS has its own value, and can be compared to a dividend that one would receive from a stock.

– NEO’s Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance protocol can’t be forked. As we’ve seen Bitcoin splinter into countless fork variations over the years, there is still only one NEO.

For better or worse, upgrades and arguments have to be settled on chain.

Where NEO Could Be Better

With only a handful of consensus nodes active worldwide, and most of these controlled by the NEO Foundation, NEO is still not decentralized. However, decentralization in the blockchain space is often accompanied by slower performance and/or higher fees. This is by design, as NEO knew it was more important to be fast in its early days, and to pursue decentralization after early development was solidified. However, decentralization has still been slow to manifest, and NEO’s fans generally say it cannot arrive soon enough, as this is one of the essential elements of a blockchain, according to the original ethos of the technology.

Perhaps more problematic for NEO is how it has seen several of its top projects either leave the network for other blockchains, or to set up independent blockchains. These include Effect AI, which left earlier this year, and Travala, a top-performing NEO dapp that is leaving for Binance

Chain (another Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance chain, we might add). These projects have cited problems with the NEO blockchain. While discouraging for NEO fans, it is hoped that these issues will be overcome with the top-to-bottom overhaul that is NEO 3.0.

So What Does This Mean for NEO Coin Prices?

In our opinion, NEO looks like one of the most durable blockchain projects in the space. Even as the ongoing “Crypto Winter” has sunk many of NEO’s contemporaries, NEO is still going strong, and is farther along their mission than ever before. With strong leadership, sensible and transparent financials, and an inspired technological foundation, we expect NEO to grow and thrive in the future.

This is not, however, a recipe for fast growth. NEO is no longer the newest name in town. If the rest of the market stays low for awhile, it’ll be easier for a newer name to build hype and get short term gains for investors. But when it comes to medium-to-long term investments, NEO may be at the top of its class. Trading 95% below its all-time-high price, it’s easy to see where NEO could go in the future, and how much of a deal it could be today.

Of course, it’s up to you to do your own research and decide whether or not you think NEO really is a steal at these prices. If you’re right, you could earn big gains (and some nice GAS

rewards). If not…we’ll just have to wait and see.