Neo and Gas are sky rocketing recently. Hope this will help you decide if you should invest in "China’s Ethereum".

INTRODUCTION

Neo is the new brand name for the former Antshare cryptocurrency, rebranded on the 22nd of June this year at the Microsoft headquarters in Beijing China. Neo is an open source blockchain which encourages collaboration and contribution from developers around the world. It is currently moving towards the smart contract use case, which consequently lead them to be referred to as China’s Ethereum.

One of Neos’ use cases is digital identity, which enables information identity creation of organizations, and individuals into electronic form. These will require some form of identification such as the use of biometrics, sms etc. Neo aims to convert traditional assets to digital using smart contracts. These digital assets will then be decentralized and will be protected by law using digital certificates on the blockchain which in turn guarantees trust.

Additionally they are piloting something they call smart contract 2.0, which can be described as a multi- programing language contract compiler. What this means is that irrespective of the type of developer you are, from Java, C# .Net framework. The Neo compiler will translate that into their native smart contract language. This totally breaks the barrier to entry phased by developers, without them having to learn a new programming language.

Another stage in the crypto space is how to settle transactions. One way is proof of work, which deploys an expensive algorithm to solve a crypto graphic puzzle to prove that you are right. Or proof of stake, which means you have to through a lot of money at the problem to show that you have the right interest. Neo’s solution to that is what they call a delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT). What it sums up to is that there are 2 user categories on the network. First is the normal user who interacts or engage using the application, as well as the delegates, who are the people who are there to make money. Theses delegates are the people that have the right interest of the ecosystem and are delegated by Neo to confirm each transaction.

NEO AND GAS TOKENS

The network has two tokens, Neo and Gas which were formerly called Antshare and Antcoin. Neo is currently ranked 9th and priced at $29.84 on coinmarketcap at the time of writing this article, with a market capitalization of $1,492,075,000 U.S Dollars. While Gas is ranked 35th with a current market capitalization of about $192,135,454 U.S Dollars. The Neo token acts as the investment token of the Neo blockchain. It has a hard capitalization of 100million tokens, which will be used in block creation, network management, network changes and any other requirements. These 100million tokens were all pre-mined during the genesis block creation. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, the smallest unit of Neo will always be one (1) Neo can be bought from exchanges like Bitrex etc.

The Gas token also has a hundred million market capitalizations, acting as fuel for the Neo blockchain. Unlike the Neo token, Gas is divisible. What this implies is that having some Neo in your Neo wallet, you are also going to get some gas. This will make people to also want to hold Neo tokens in their Neo wallets thereby prevent the effects of pump and dump. Gas tokens were not pre-mined; 100million gas tokens will go away in about 22 years. You will be given gas, because it will be slowly disappear away. Gas will be used for resource allocations, network charges for operations such as running DAPs, Smart contracts and providing maintenance for the blockchain. Gas is the functional token. Neo coins are not divisible, which means you can’t break them up into smaller amount of tokens, Gas can be. Neo has 3 major wallets, which comprise mobile desktop and web based wallets.

According to Neo (Antshares) co-founder Da Hong Fei in an interview with boxmining, it is a community driven/funded open source project. Neo doesn't have direct co-operation with the Chinese government. However they have another entity called Onchain, which is a private company, funded by Da Hong Fei, Eric John, and 3 other co-founders. One of the three other co-founders is from an official futures exchange in Shanghai, the 4th guy is from QUALCOMM, and the 5th co-founder works at Morgan Stanley. Antshare has a cordial connection with the Chinese government. They also set up a joint company with the government of China, working on identity check. Using what they call digital identity, they are mirroring real world assets to the blockchain. In addition to this, they also have a cross chain path, which allows them to work across different blockchains. They could be working with Bitcoin or Ethereum in the future. Finally they are in partnership with Microsoft which makes them very viable.

NEO AS AN ICO LAUNCHING PLATFORM

Apart from the flexible programming features that come with the new Neo virtual machine, Neo is going to have better support for ERC 20 tokens. They are moving into a supporting ICO route similar to Ethereum.

The first of its kind, an initial coin offering (ICO) called RedPulse (RPX) is to be implemented on the Neo blockchain which is launching on the 8th of October. About 40% of the funds generated for the ICO will be put into further development in the area of R&D and platform development: blockchain, web and software developers, machine learning & NLP experts.

As stated on their official website, RedPulse already has a product developed in 2015 that is already being utilized by leading financial institutions and Fortune 500 corporations. To show that these guys really mean business, registration for token sale has already been closed at moment this article is written.

As a pre-requisite to investing in any ICO, the first thing to look out for is whether they have an ‘A’-list team. The co-founder of Neo ‘Da Hong Fei’ is an advisor on the RedPulse project, which in itself is a confidence booster to this ICO launch. There is so much interviews and buzz about this ICO right now, especially on CGTN and CCTV with RedPulse CEO Jonathan Ha.

This launch will most definitely create a high demand for Red Pulse, huge volatility and liquidity in the price of Neo, pulling the price of Gas along with it. The RedPulse (RPX) is definitely going on the bullish run considering the fundamentals. Being an early adopter of this new RPX token, as well as jumping on the bullish run of NEO & GAS is definitely a wise investment decision.

NEOUSDT: EXPLODES INTO A BULLISH RUN, A TECHNICAL OVERVIEW

The NEOUSDT pair is preparing for a violation of accumulated selling pressure. Zooming out to a larger time-frame perspective of the weekly chart shows a critical level of resistance at $24.80 which will most likely be violated. This level is critical because it signifies an area of accumulated sellers, who will soon become buyers upon close above the $24.80 level. This will establish a new support level at $13.05 U.S. Dollars as shown in the chart below.
Price is currently above this level at about $29.00, and my general take is that with the upcoming RedPulse ICO, the NEOUSDT pair is resuming its bullish run.

NEOUSDT: BULLISH DIVERGENCE SETUPS

Another technical setup on the NEOUSDT cryptocurrency pair is the divergence setup. This setup is a very reliable signal based on the cyclic nature of the pair. In combination with the failure of sellers accumulation level signals a resumption of the bullish run of the pair NEOUSDT.

GENERATING GAS TOKENS ON NEO WALLET

For long term buy and hold investors, it is important that you move your NEO to a wallet, either a web or desktop wallet. This is because, your NEO generates GAS tokens, which as earlier on mentioned is used for transaction fees and implementing smart contracts. Leaving your NEO on an exchange, makes these exchanges keep your GAS tokens, which is also tradable on some other exchanges like Binance. Though you are not restricted to a particular wallet in order for you to earn GAS, but an easy to use, and certified secure by the NEO team is the NEON wallet.

Finally, making a backup of your private key by writing it out in a safe and secure, for your eyes only non-digital location will go a long way to guarantee your investment into the NEO cryptocurrency.