NEO News: 2 New Tokens in NEO Ecosystem, NEO-CLI 2.9.0 Core Update, And More

NEO, China’s star blockchain platform and contender for the “Ethereum killer” title, had a busy September. Most notable among its achievements of the past month have been the addition of 2 new tokens to the NEO ecosystem: CNEO and CGAS.

CNEO and CGAS

As the NEO ecosystem has been growing and becoming more diverse, it has become necessary for that diversity to be reflected in their tokens. Thus, the NGD (NEO Global Development) launched CNEO and CGAS (C for “contract”) as NEP-5-compliant smart contract assets at the request of their community.

These 2 tokens are open source and decentralized, for those community members who didn’t fully trust the NEO’s centralized methods of mapping global assets.

CNEO and CGAS have no usage restrictions when it comes to mapping global assets, and can be used with any project. They are tethered to NEO and GAS respectively, and can be exchanged for their counterparts at market rates.

This comes as a relief to the NEO community, because it means they have a straightforward, easy way to convert NEO and GAS – which do not function with smart contracts easily – to CNEO and CGAS, which are both designed for that purpose.

Why did the NEO team feel the need to peg these new tokens to existing tokens? Often when new tokens are introduced to an ecosystem, they tend to get brushed under the carpet and overlooked by exchanges.

With CNEO and CGAS offered as smart contract assets, interchangeable with NEO and GAS at a 1:1 ratio and fully refundable, the NEO team offers a more versatile pair of tokens, which will make it both easier and less expensive for projects on the NEO blockchain to launch their own tokens.

For more details on how to use CNEO and CGAS, read this article on NEO’s blog.

NEO-CLI 2.9.0 Core Update

The addition of CNEO and CGAS to the NEO ecosystem doesn’t technically count as an upgrade, as the NEO blockchain itself had already undergone an update earlier in September.

NEO-CLI 2.9.0 was released, a core update of NEO that functions using the Akka framework, which offers solutions to the issues inherent in a concurrent distributed system. This new version of NEO-CLI also offers new capabilities in the form of plugins that will allow for improved security and stability of NEO nodes.

It will also include simplified and automated processes which were previously manual, such as choosing models, opening the wallet, or getting application logs. Overall, this will make it easier and more convenient to deploy nodes.

Community Announcements

As can be seen in how NGD responded to community suggestions to release CNEO and CGAS as NEP-5-compliant tokens, NEO’s development team is actively seeking to cultivate a good relationship with their community.

Other efforts they are making to this end include a vulnerability bounty program (NEO VBP), which offers rewards to teams and individuals who find vulnerabilities in the NEO network.

Vulnerabilities can be submitted by email to erik@neo.org.

NEO also launched their Creative Design Competition in September, which is a contest turning to the community to brainstorm website and icon designs reflecting the concept of “Smart Economy.” The competition runs until October 14, and total prize money amounts to US$30,000.

Interested applicants can find more details here.

Other Noteworthy Events

Aside from releases and developments, NEO has been hard at work increasing global awareness of blockchain through their NEO Blockchain Open Course program.

They had 2 workshops in Shanghai over the course of September, dealing with blockchain development and commissioning of NEO smart contracts, plus a “Hands-on-Coding” workshop based in Tokyo. They held various meetup groups with community members to share insights and thoughts about the progression of the NEO ecosystem.

In addition to workshops, NGD organized 2 hackathons in the final week of September, and team members participated as keynote speakers and panelists at 5 global conferences over the course of the month.

Finally, the NGD is excited to be in the position to expand their team. They added 1 new team member during September, and are actively on the lookout for new talent to bring to the NEO Foundation.

Related: Could NEO Be A Potential Moonshot? (Opinion)