Neo Colorado is a community-established group founded in 2018 to increase local and international exposure for developers and projects within the Neo ecosystem. The community group was created for developers, investors, and interested parties to gather, meet, and discuss the Neo blockchain and its projects.

Through partnerships with COZ and NEO-ONE, blockchain developers in the intermountain region of the US have been able to learn directly from contributors to the Neo ecosystem through meetups, workshops, and informal meet-and-greets. Alongside hosting events, Neo Colorado also participated in regional governmental and blockchain events.

Additionally, Neo Colorado was successful in its application for a COZ microgrant to build neo-burner, a temporary wallet aimed at increasing users in the Neo ecosystem.

Technical events

In collaboration with NEO-ONE, Neo Colorado hosted two developer workshops, which were conducted by Alex Fragapane. The first workshop took place in Denver, Colorado, which offered attendees an overview of the structure and design of a simple token smart contract in the NEO-ONE environment. The second workshop took place in Boulder, Colorado, where Fragapane hosted an interactive lesson for developing escrow smart contracts. Individuals who completed a pre-workshop assignment or participated in the workshop received GAS tokens as a reward.

In addition to workshops, Neo Colorado hosted an Ideas and Microgrants event in Lafayette, Colorado, to increase exposure of the COZ microgrants initiative. The idea generation event sought to foster the discussion of projects that can build on the Neo blockchain, as well as potential support from the COZ microgrants program. COZ co-founder, Tyler Adams, attended the event to provide further details and information regarding the COZ microgrants.

Educational events

In May 2019, Neo Colorado collaborated with EOS Denver and Ethereum Denver to host a fireside chat for panelists to share their experiences in their respective ecosystems. Following a brief overview of various metrics for comparison, panelists were asked to respond to a series of pre-written questions. Afterward, members from the audience were invited to ask questions. In total, about 40 participants from the Colorado blockchain community attended. Following the event, participants expressed positive feedback. The moderator for the evening, Dan Shields, stated he’d “heard ‘best meetup of the year’ thrown around a few times.”

Throughout 2019, Neo Colorado offered educational events where attendees were given presentations on topics such as network decentralization, highlights of the second Neo DevCon, and a 101 introduction to the ecosystem. In August, Neo Colorado partnered with two local blockchain communities, Denver Blockchain and Rocky Mountain Blockchain, to offer an “in-depth 101-level” presentation outlining the basics of the Neo blockchain.

Neo Colorado also hosted informal gatherings for developers, projects, businesses, and general interest investors to network. In July, Neo Colorado hosted a meet and greet in Boulder, Colorado, with ecosystem developers Tyler Adams, COZ and Moonlight co-founder, and Alex Fragapane, NEO-ONE developer. The informal event was aimed at offering a forum for connecting people working within the Neo ecosystem to the local Colorado community. In attendance were individuals from Colorado blockchain projects such as Gitcoin, Aproflow, and the Peregrine, a coworking space that offers a “Crypto Cafe.”

Government and regional events

In addition to offering technical and general informational events, Neo Colorado also participated in activities that increased governmental awareness of the Smart Economy.

Neo Colorado participated in the Blockchain Day at the Colorado State Capitol, alongside COZ and Moonlight co-founder, Tyler Adams, and 16 Colorado-based blockchain companies. The event took place to help Colorado legislators better understand blockchain and its impact on the local economy. The main points of conversation throughout the day included Neo’s delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT) consensus mechanism and its 100% block finality, regulatory compliance, and Neo’s expanding developer community.

In October 2019, Neo Colorado delivered a presentation at the fifth annual Global Blockchain Summit in Lafayette, Colorado. The Global Blockchain Summit is a two-day conference oriented towards government and enterprise-level entities. Event attendees were given a presentation that highlighted Neo’s historical focus on regulatory compliance, as well as insights into China’s regulatory framework. Insights into China’s future regulatory framework were primarily derived from a symposium with seven blockchain projects that took place in Shanghai, China, in September 2019.

Neo Community Assembly and neo-burner

In September 2019, Neo Colorado delivered a presentation to various ecosystem members at the Neo Community Assembly, which took place at Neo HQ in Shanghai, China. Attendees were offered an overview of the events hosted by Neo Colorado, as well as lessons learned to help future local community builders. During the presentation, Neo Colorado announced the neo-burner wallet concept, which later received the first COZ microgrant award to build the product.

The neo-burner concept offers users a way to easily receive NEO or GAS by simply scanning a QR code. Neo-burner is designed to on-board to users into the Neo ecosystem, by offering them a time-restricted temporary wallet loaded with funds. If they don’t send neo-burner funds to a permanent wallet within a specific timeframe, they’ll lose access to the neo-burner wallet. Therefore, neo-burner offers a time-restricted incentive to use Neo ecosystem products and services.

The neo-burner product is currently being built by COZ developer, Shane Mann (aka uvmetal), and has a tentative launch date of Q1 2020.

Neo Colorado’s efforts can be found in a chronological timeline below:

January

25th: Neo Colorado meetup to discuss Neo’s path to network decentralization in Denver, Colorado – Details.

February

25th: Neo Colorado meetup to discuss highlights of Neo DevCon in Denver, Colorado – Details.

27th: Neo Colorado attends Blockchain Day at the Capitol in Denver, Colorado – Details.

March

17th: Neo Colorado delivers lighting talk for decentralize Colorado lightning talks – Video.

27th: Neo Colorado meetup hosts Tyler Adams of COZ and Moonlight in Denver, Colorado – Details.

April

23rd: Neo Colorado hosts workshop with Alex Fragapane of NEO-ONE in Denver, Colorado – Details.

May

23rd: Neo Colorado participates in fireside chat about NEO, Ethereum, and EOS in Denver, Colorado – Details.

June

18th: Neo Colorado hosts workshop with Alex Fragapane of NEO-ONE in Boulder, Colorado – Details.

July

30th: Neo Colorado hosts meet and greet with NEO-ONE and COZ in Boulder, Colorado – Details.

August

29th: Neo Colorado hosts meetup with Denver Blockchain and Rocky Mountain Blockchain in Denver, Colorado – Details.

September

5th: Neo Colorado delivers presentation to Neo developer community in Shanghai, China – Details.

26th: Neo Colorado hosts informal meetups in Denver, Colorado – Details.

October

4th: Neo Colorado delivers presentation at the Global Blockchain Summit in Lafayette, Colorado – Details.

November