Neo 3.0 is going to be launched as a new blockchain network and users will need to swap their existing tokens for new ones, according to an official announcement shared with Cointelegraph on April 29.

The Chinese platform’s co-founder and core developer Erik Zhang has said the new chain, which is coming from a new genesis block, is necessary because several architectural improvements to Neo’s performance and stability are not compatible with its current blockchain.

According to the platform, all data and transaction records will migrate to Neo 3.0, and concurrent development branches will be in place before the mainnet’s launch. Neo added that plans are in place for the transition for decentralized apps (DApps), and developers should be able to continue building Dapps because most new features are backwards compatible.

Zhang said the upgrade will increase Neo’s speed and stability by orders of magnitude and make it suitable for large-scale commercial use. The new chain is scheduled to be completed by the second quarter of 2020 and a testnet is due to launch by June, with new features deployed for testing as they are completed. He added:

“When we talk about Neo 3.0 being ready for large-scale commercial use, we mean it provides the possibility to run large-scale applications with blockchain technology. In the future, we'd like to see applications such as YouTube, Alipay, and gaming giants like Tencent and Blizzard run on blockchain, and Neo 3.0 will allow these big organizations to do that.”

In February, Cointelegraph reported that Neo was opening a new office in Seattle, with former Microsoft executive John deVadoss at the helm.

On April 18, Binance launched its mainnet Binance Chain. Work is now under way to convert binance coin (BNB) from the old ether-compatible ERC-20 technical standard to a native BEP-2 Binance Chain standard.

Decentralized social media platform Mithril (MITH) was reportedly the first to adopt the Binance Chain, with MITH token migrating from ERC-20 to BEP2.