In a world dominated by bitcoins and ether, there’s a relatively lesser-known cryptocurrency fast gaining ground. This new cryptocurrency, NEO, is dubbed the “Chinese Ethereum” and is touted to dethrone Western cryptocurrencies. While it may sound too far-fetched right now, extrapolating its growth into the future delivers a very promising NEO price prediction 2018.

NEO Price Prediction 2018: Chinese Ethereum Making Steady Advance

There’s a reason why NEO has earned the catchy moniker. NEO is essentially the Chinese version of Ethereum. If you have a basic idea of how Ethereum works, the concept of NEO should be fairly easy to grasp. So, before we head to NEO coin price prediction, here’s a heads-up.

NEO is a blockchain-based ecosystem for smart contracts, just like Ethereum. It was founded by two Chinese techies and is presently backed by the Chinese government, which is what essentially makes it different from its North American counterpart. There are two other key differences, which I’ll highlight shortly.

You’ll soon see why NEO coin has the potential to compete with Ethereum—the world’s most popular cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.




Now, let’s go back to my NEO price prediction 2018.

I’m foreseeing triple-digit gains in the NEO price in the coming year. Yes, triple! Stay with me for the reasons why.

The NEO tokens had always traded for pennies until summer of this year. It was in July that we saw a sudden surge in its price. This was when the world realized the unique utility that blockchain-backed cryptocurrencies offered.

Those who had gotten in early saw their NEO investments grow exponentially in a matter of days. Between early July and mid-August, NEO prices jumped more than 500%.

Imagine quintupling a modest sum into a giant jackpot!

The uptrend in NEO cryptocurrency price is very obvious if you take a look at the NEO price chart here.

Chart courtesy of TradingView.com

The NEO to USD rate has corrected after the sharp summer rally and is now in a reasonable price range.

In the past one month, the NEO/USD rate has found support in the $28.00 to $32.00 range and may soon be setting up for a breakout.

NEO, which was formerly called Antshares, is one of the 10 most traded cryptocurrencies and is on its way to hit a $2.0-billion market capitalization. NEO coins, at the time of writing, are trading for about $29.50 apiece, and there are about 65 million of them in circulation.

In the cryptocurrency universe, where roughly 1,200 cryptocurrencies have hit the market, making it to the top 10 grants NEO quite some credibility. NEO is now in the same league of altcoins as Ripple and Litecoin.

It’s okay if you haven’t heard of these. We got you covered. Get our Ripple price predictions here and Litecoin price predictions here.

NEO vs. Ethereum: Why Crypto Bulls Are Hopeful of the “Chinese Ethereum”?

Let me divulge more on why I believe NEO is a strong contender against Ethereum in the cryptocurrency race.

The whole idea of these blockchain-based smart contract networks is to provide users a platform where they can share anything of value, including money, property, or even sensitive data, without the fear of losing it or having a third party interfering or surveilling on it.

So any network that can process a greater number of transactions at a faster speed naturally becomes more favorable to users.

With that in mind, take note that NEO can handle up to 1,000 transactions per second and is optimizable to over 10,000 transactions per second. Ethereum, on the contrary, can currently handle only 15 transactions per second. This gives NEO a certain edge over Ethereum.

Then, there’s another cool feature that comes with investing in NEO coin. Unlike Bitcoin, with which investors seek rewards (additional bitcoins) through Bitcoin mining, NEO coins are not mined. Instead, you are rewarded with dividends (NEO coins). Yes, that’s right!

NEO pays you “GAS”—a form of dividend—just as you would receive for holding a dividend-paying stock.

Unlike Ethereum, which measures GAS as your contribution to the network but doesn’t really pay you anything in ether tokens, NEO does reward you. The condition is that you hold your NEO coins in your wallet and not on an exchange. However, some exchanges are now beginning to pay NEO GAS to the respective account holders.

Regardless, your GAS dividend coins are your asset and can also trade on the exchange just like your NEO coins.

These upsides have already granted NEO a lead over most other cryptocurrencies.

Analyst Take:

You may already guess that my NEO price prediction 2018 is nothing but bullish. If no unforeseen upheavals disrupt its momentum, I’m seeing NEO coin smoothly heading for $120.00. This implies a neat 300% gain in price from the current level.

How can I say this with conviction? Consider that China’s Amazon, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: BABA), and China’s Google, Baidu Inc (ADR)(NASDAQ: BIDU), were once insignificant. Probably nobody ever thought that someday they would be trading on American exchanges competing with their bigger Western equivalents. China’s Ethereum (NEO) may surprise us in the same way.

But here’s a fair warning for my readers wishing to invest in NEO.

This cryptocurrency is highly susceptible to changes in Chinese regulations. Let me give you an example. When the Chinese government banned initial coin offerings (ICOs)—that is, the act of raising funds for startups using cryptocurrencies—NEO met with a major sell-off that resulted in a steep drop in NEO price.

So if momentary hiccups make you jumpy, investing in young and volatile cryptocurrencies may not be up your alley.

Otherwise, my NEO price forecast for 2018 is telling as I see strong upside potential in NEO coin prices in the coming year.