NEO: An Open-Source Community Blockchain

Blockchain has gained humongous traction from different sectors/industries seeking to function in a decentralized way. Various blockchain platforms use different consensus mechanisms to regulate the scalability and security of the network. Consensus mechanisms like Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake support blockchain in maintaining the history of transactions on a particular blockchain platform.

Among different consensus mechanisms, dBFT is one algorithm that powers blockchains to counter unreliable network participants, establishing a smart economy. Talking about this consensus mechanism, the NEO blockchain platform is the actual alma-mater of dBFT. NEO using dBFT has surfaced as the Chinese Ethereum blockchain. Let’s understand NEO and its connection with dBFT.

Table of Content:

• What is Neo Blockchain?
• Who Founded the Neo Platform?
• What are the Neo Design Goals?
• Various Management Models of Neo
• What is the Underlying Technology Stack of Neo
• What Neo Development Services does LeewayHertz Provide?
• Concluding Note

What is Neo Blockchain?

Neo is a decentralized open-source blockchain platform driven by a community in China. Through smart contracts, Neo enables developers to digitize and automate asset management. It also includes robust native infrastructures like decentralized storage, oracles, and domain name service, laying the groundwork for the Next-Generation Internet.

VISION
To function as an open platform for the smart economy.

MISSION
To create an asset, virtual or real, available to humans and programs with as little permission as possible.

The Neo network operates on a decentralized Byzantine fault-tolerant (dBFT) consensus process amongst several centrally sanctioned nodes and can sustain up to 10,000 transactions per second. The non-divisible Neo token, which creates GAS tokens, is the foundational asset of the Neo blockchain. These GAS tokens, distinct assets on the network, may pay transaction fees and have the lowest unit of 0.00000001. The pace of GAS inflation is regulated by a fading half-life mechanism, which will release 100 million GAS over the course of about 22 years.

The Neo feature set centers on tools that enable developers to effectively launch and operate smart contract applications on the Neo network.

Developers may use Digital Identities to link tokens to real-world identities, which helps them comply with KYC/AML and other regulatory standards.

Who Founded the Neo Platform?

Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang created Neo under the title Antshares in 2014. The actual source code was made available on GitHub in July 2015, and thus the MainNet was introduced in October 2016.

Antshares was renamed Neo in 2017 after implementing Smart Contracts 2.0. It saw rapid worldwide proliferation as hundreds of new developers rushed to the blockchain. Neo’s leadership began offering NEO token incentives to organizations and people that contributed to the Neo platform’s success. NeoEconoLabs and O3 Labs were the first organizations to join Neo.

Neo will be upgraded to version 3.0, known as N3, in 2021. The N3 update, which began in June 2018, is the most significant breakthrough in Neo’s history. It aims to provide the industry with the first all-in-one blockchain development experience, with robust native capabilities like distributed storage, oracles, and identity services. In addition, Neo N3 has a simpler and more flexible design than its predecessors and upgraded governance and economic framework.

Neo was an early pioneer in the blockchain sector. It was not only the first public smart contract platform in China, but it was also the first chain to adopt a dual token model and the first to use a BFT-style consensus process. Furthermore, Neo remains the first token sale to return all of the initial capital earned to its participants after the initiative has produced sufficient revenue to be self-sustaining.

What are the Neo Design Goals?

Neo applies blockchain technology and digital ownership to digitize assets, uses smart contracts to self-manage digital assets, and achieves a “smart economy” via a decentralized system.

• Digital Assets
  Users on the Neo blockchain can register, trade, and exchange various assets. It is feasible to demonstrate the link between digital and physical assets through digital identification. Assets registered with a recognized digital identity are legally protected.
  There are two types of digital assets in Neo: global assets and contract assets. All smart contracts and clients may identify and record global assets in the system space. Contract assets are recorded in the smart contract’s private storage area and must be recognized by a suitable client. Contract assets might comply with specific criteria to be compatible with the majority of clients.

• Digital Identity
  Identification information of persons, companies and other entities that exist in digital form is referred to as digital identity. The PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) X.509 standard underpins the more sophisticated digital identification system. Neo plans to implement a set of X.509-compliant digital identity standards. This collection of digital identity standards will enable the Web Of Trust point-to-point certificate issuance paradigm and the compatible X.509 level certificate issuing methodology. Neo employs face characteristics, fingerprints, voice, SMS, and other multi-factor authentication techniques to verify identification when using digital IDs.

• Smart Contract
  The most notable component of the developer ecosystem’s seamless integration is the NeoContract smart contract technology. NeoContract is an independent, smart contract system. Developers do not need to learn a different programming language; instead, they may use C#, Java, and other common programming languages in their known IDE frameworks (Visual Studio, Eclipse, and so on) for smart contract creation, debugging, and compilation.
  NeoVM, Neo’s Universal Lightweight Virtual Machine, features high reliability, concurrency and adaptability. The NeoContract smart contract technology will enable millions of developers worldwide to create smart contracts easily.

Various Management Models of Neo

• Economic Model
  NEO (abbreviated symbol NEO) and GAS are Neo’s native tokens (abbreviated symbol GAS). The right to operate the network is represented by NEO, which has 100 million tokens. Management privileges include the ability to vote on accounting, Neo network parameter changes, etc. NEO has a minimum unit of 1, and tokens cannot be split.GAS is the fuel token used to implement Neo network resource management, with a total limit of 100 million. The Neo network charges for token and smart contract operation and storage, giving economic advantages for consensus nodes and minimizing resource abuse. GAS has a minimum unit of 0.00000001.

• Distribution Mechanism
  The 100 million NEO tokens are split into two halves. The first part consists of 50 million tokens awarded equally to NEO supporters during the campaign period. This chunk has been allocated.
  The second component consists of 50 million NEO maintained by the Neo Council to assist Neo’s long-term development and management.

• Governance Mechanism
  NEO token holders are network owners, administering the network by voting in the network and utilizing the GAS created by NEO to use the network’s services. Transferring NEO tokens is possible. The Neo Council comprises the Neo project’s founding members, and the management committee, technical committee, and secretariat are in charge of strategic decision-making, technical decision-making, and specific implementation, respectively. As its primary goal, the Neo Council is accountable to the Neo community for promoting and growing the Neo ecosystem.

What is the Underlying Technology Stack of Neo

• dBFT
  The Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerant (dBFT) is a Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus technique that allows for large-scale involvement in consensus through proxy voting. The holder of the NEO coin can choose which consensus node to support by voting. Through the BFT process, the selected set of consensus nodes form a consensus and produce new blocks. Voting on the Neo network occurs in real-time rather than a predetermined schedule.

• NeoContract
  It offers a fast start-up time and adaptability, ideal for tiny programs such as smart contracts. Before launching a smart contract, NeoContract may generate a smart contract call tree using static analysis. The Neo node may dynamically fragment the smart contract using the deterministic call tree to allow limitless extension, overcoming the “jamming effect” produced by static fragmentation in conventional blockchain systems.

• NeoX
  NeoX is a protocol for cross-chain compatibility. The NeoX protocol is split into two parts: “cross-chain assets exchange protocol” and “cross-chain distributed transaction protocol.” NeoX enables cross-chain smart contracts, allowing a smart contract to run various sections on several chains, either working or failing.

• NeoFS
  NeoFS is a networked storage mechanism that uses the Distributed Hash Table (DHT) technology. NeoFS indexes data using the file content (Hash) instead of the file location (URI). Large files will be broken into fixed-size data blocks, spread and stored across several nodes. The key issue with this system is that it must strike a balance between duplication and dependability. NeoFS intends to address this conflict through token incentives and the installation of backbone nodes.

• NeoQS
  NeoQS (Quantum Safe) is a cryptographic technique based on lattices. At the moment, quantum computers lack the capacity to solve the Shortest Vector Problem (SVP) and the Closest Vector Problem (CVP), which are regarded as the most dependable algorithms for repelling quantum computers.

What Neo Development Services does LeewayHertz Provide?

• Smart Contract Development
  To enable diverse dApps, we provide Smart Contract creation services for the public Neo blockchain network. We provide architecture, auditing, and delivery of optimal Smart Contracts to our clients in addition to design and development.

• dApp Development
  To enable diverse dApps, we provide robust dApp development services for the Neo blockchain network. We provide a development roadmap and high maintenance services for the dApps, making them compliant with the client’s needs.

• Wallet Development
  Our blockchain developers use their expertise to develop highly scalable custom blockchain wallet applications. Our developers build Neo Blockchain compliant wallets, offering easy transaction history tracking.

• Nodes Creation
  Our blockchain experts develop fully optimized nodes for blockchain platforms and monitor them to make them consensus complaints. Neo implements a dBFT mechanism for its network.

• Support and maintenance of the Neo dApps
  We provide lifelong support and maintenance services to our clients using Neo-based dApps.

Concluding Note

Neo is a decentralized platform that brings together digital assets, digital identities, and smart contracts. The Neo ecosystem utilizes DBFT, NeoX, NeoFS, NeoQS, and other highly-efficient software and technologies in its framework for attaining the vision of a futuristic smart economy.

For further consultancy on Neo development services, get in touch with our blockchain experts.