The NEO Consensus Node page was officially launched recently, advancing the decentralization process. Previously, the NEO developer community COZ operated one of the seven consensus nodes of the NEO main network, while the other six were run by the NEO Foundation. Now, KPN has officially become the consensus node of the NEO main network, marking the further decentralization of NEO.

The NEO main network was officially launched on October 17, 2016 and has been in stable operation for two years now. In the past two years, decentralization has always been the focus of NEO’s development. On July 4, 2018, CoZ, a NEO developer community, became the first non-NEO Foundation operating consensus node, marking the beginning of the era of NEO decentralization. As an important partner of NEO ecology, KPN has been running consensus nodes in the NEO test network since July 2018. So far, the consensus nodes in KPN have been stable and highly recognized by the community, so the NEO Foundation has decided to complete the main network voting three months in advance.

In NEO’s latest round of consensus node voting, KPN was officially elected as the CONSENSUS node of NEO’s main network on October 10, 2018 at 6:13:12 (Beijing time). After KPN becomes the consensus node of the main network, the number of NEO Foundation operations on the seven consensus nodes on the NEO main network is reduced to five, which is a significant step for the decentralization process of NEO.

Currently, the NEO consensus Node page provides node operating status, node voting data and other information, as well as visualization information for consensus node applications of “on-chain governance” and “off-chain governance”. In the future, consensus nodes run by the NEO Foundation will be gradually distributed to reliable, trusted partners with outstanding technical capabilities to achieve full decentralization.

At present, there are 7 consensus nodes on the main network:

  • NEO Foundation maintains five
  • CityOfZion community maintains 1
  • KPN maintains one

At present, there are 7 consensus nodes in the test network:

  • NEO Foundation maintains two
  • NEO Global Development maintains one
  • CityOfZion community maintains 2
  • KPN maintains one
  • Swisscom Blockchain maintains 1

NEO decentralization process:

In November 2015, the online line was tested.

In April 2016, antShares-GUI consensus node registration and voting system was opened.

In October 2016, the main network was launched and seven consensus nodes of NEO Council were selected.

In July 2017, AntShares-GUI was renamed neo-GUI and released an update.

In January 2018, the voting algorithm was optimized.

In January 2018, Neo-GUI was updated to accommodate the optimized voting algorithm.

In January 2018, CoZ ran nodes on the test network.

In January 2018, KPN ran nodes on the test network. KPN is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the Netherlands.

In May 2018, the P2P network was improved.

In July 2018, the consensus Node candidate list website was launched.

In July 2018, the NEO Foundation voted for CoZ, the consensus node of the mainnet.

In September 2018, Swisscom Blockchain began running nodes on the test network.

In October 2018, the NEO Foundation voted for a new mainnet consensus node, KPN.

In 2019, NEO plans to fully open elections and voting for consensus nodes.