NEO, formerly known as Xiao Yi, was officially initiated in 2014 and opened source on Github in Real time in June 2015. NEO’s main network was officially launched in October 2016. As one of the earliest blockchain projects in China, NEO team has witnessed the highs and lows of the blockchain industry, the craze and cooling of the digital currency market, and the ambiguity and clarity of regulatory attitudes of various countries since its establishment.
Looking back on the birth of NEO, there are several important milestones: from the birth of the idea of bitcoin startup in 2014, to the launch of the micro-angel website, dedicated to assisting small and micro asset crowdfunding; In September 2015, NEO’s predecessor, Xiao Yi, issued a white paper and completed two crowdfunding campaigns to raise sufficient funds for the team’s development and ecological construction in the following years. In June 2017, the brand of Xiaoyi was upgraded and NEO was officially launched.
NEO Development Roadmap from 2014 to present (Source: TOKEN Economics Institute)
The research report
As we mark NEO’s second anniversary, we interviewed its founder da Hongfei. Not just NEO itself, we also asked him these questions:
What changes has the development of public chain experienced in the past two years? Status quo and core issues? How can domestic team-led projects really “go global”? NEO’s controversial consensus node decentralization progress? How to choose between public chain scenes, finance OR games? Key words for the future of the industry? What’s your opinion on new hot spots like stablecoin and STO? What advice do you have for new investors and entrepreneurs?
Take a look at the share of Da Hongfei, one of the earliest blockchain pioneers in China:
NEO founder Da Hongfei
Blockchain Application Scenarios: Gaming or Finance?
8BTC: NEO’s goal is to achieve a smart economy. Is it where you wanted to be?
Da Hongfei: The overall direction is the same, but you are focusing on a little bit more specifically. There are of course different priorities for what to do at this time. Starting a business is like playing basketball. There is a movement in basketball, one foot is standing still, the other foot is moving, and then you look in which direction, but the direction of the basket is always in that position. For example, recently, we have been in contact with game developers, and some games will be developed on NEO.
8BTC: You can see that NEO Ecology has been focusing on games recently, with the launch of NEL, a community project, in AugustNEO Blockchain Game Development CompetitionNEO Global Capital has also invested in coCOS-BCX, a blockchain game development platform. Why is NEO Global Capital optimistic about the development prospects of blockchain in the game field?
Da hong to fly: Earliest everyone think block chain with the financial, has a strong disruptive, but also has the very strong resistance, because finance is a strong regulatory industry, no matter in which country, there are two ways of integration with the financial, is a work with traditional financial institutions licensed, but this way a lot of business will be affected by these licences, the resistance of the need to meet the requirements of this license, There are many regulatory requirements that are difficult for blockchain companies to meet; The second is to ignore these licenses and find a way around them to do things that can be done without licenses.
Essentially touching existing financial regulation is difficult to proceed with. The idea of a licensed organization is I already have a license, I can do this business, why do I want to work with a blockchain company? No license can not comply with the final, it is difficult to promote large-scale application.
Naturally, some game developers have started to develop NEO, and we can also see that on other project platforms such as Ethereum, games are also a direction of multiplayer application. Digital assets in games and tokens in blockchain are naturally a good combination.
For some existing games, blockchain just adds something to it. A game in which digital assets can be transferred with blockchain records is a bonus, rather than turning it into a game that can only be played on blockchain. Other gambling games are often games that can only be played on the blockchain. In the short term, such games are easy to be popular, because they take advantage of human weaknesses. In the long term, the playability of the final game is very important, and the focus is on the game itself.
The future of blockchain games may be virtual worlds like those described in ready Player One movies, where assets are recorded on the blockchain and there needs to be a good economic model, but when such a game will appear, it will have to wait for it to come out. I hope there will be blockchain games that my daughter can play in the future.
How are consensus nodes decentralized?
8BTC: There are some doubts about NEO’s decentralization process. Recently, the whole community is also concerned about the consensus node decentralization. What progress and plans are there in this regard?
Da hong to fly: There are currently seven consensus nodes on the NEO main network, six of which are run by the NEO Foundation and one by the NEO developer community CoZ. The 7 consensus nodes in the test network are maintained by NEO Foundation, NEO Global Development, CityOfZion community, KPN and Swisscom, respectively Blockchain) maintains 1. All token holders can vote on them and these nodes may be chosen to operate the nodes on the main network if they can prove their good operation after more than six months of operation.
However, the voting participation rate is not high. At present, exchanges and teams are mainly involved in voting, so NEO team has a strong influence on this issue at present. However, as the team gradually distributes votes in the future, the team’s influence will continue to weaken.
8BTC: What is the driving force for non-team operation of nodes, such as the national level telecom companies mentioned?
Da Hongfei: The driving force of the operation is that first, they have no problem in terms of technical capability and hardware conditions. Second, they hope to have an in-depth understanding and contact with a public chain, which will be of great help to their future blockchain business.
The public chain needs to be original, and developer friendliness is important
8BTC: From the Bittech startup Camp in 2014 to now, you have almost experienced the whole process of blockchain development in China, and witnessed the birth of the first public chain project in China to the endless emergence of public chains this year. Talk about the development and evolution of public chain in your eyes in recent years? What are the main difficulties to overcome in the field of public chain?
Da Hongfei: The changes of public chain in the past two years: first, the number of public chain is increasing, because relatively speaking, the valuation of public chain is more popular in the market, so everyone is willing to do public chain; The second change is that everyone is going to the global market. It’s international from day one.
The difficulty is that if the project is initiated by a Chinese team, there is a huge cultural and language barrier compared to the project initiated by an overseas team. In addition, it is less original in the underlying core technology. The public chain needs to be original, and if the infrastructure is the same as someone else’s technical architecture, it should actually be added to another project to make it better.
8BTC: Quite a lot indeed, so is there any competition between the public chains? This year, many well-known public chains launched their main network at almost the same time. Will NEO team feel a sense of crisis?
Da Hongfei: There are too many public chains, but the upper applications and developers are not enough. Just like the operating system, there is no program run above, the operating system has no vitality. There is a sense of crisis. For NEO, in the face of strong competition from the public chain, the response is mainly conceptual — how to make the public chain most friendly to developers and easy for developers to use? For example, documentation, tutorials are important, how can a developer who knows how to program get on the NEO chain immediately and become a smart contract developer?
Product is the first factor to develop overseas community
8BTC: You also mentioned that you held a successful developer competition overseas in January this year. NEO’s overall reputation and popularity abroad is probably the best among the projects led by domestic teams. Could you share with us how to build overseas communities in the past two years? Or in the process of overseas community construction encountered any problems, how to solve them, share some experience?
Da Hongfei: Most of the time, the overseas community is more about products and technology, so to do a good product is the first important factor for the development of overseas community. The second is communication. Chinese teams must face cultural barriers when developing overseas communities, so they need English materials for local activities to spread.
8BTC: You spend a lot of time overseas. What are the differences between the development of blockchain at home and abroad that you feel?
Da Hongfei: In fact, apart from China, there are different places, and every place develops differently. If compared with North America, our market here does a little more, and really do the bottom development is less; Second, from the perspective of regulation, it is easier for small countries to have access to regulatory agencies.
“Vision” is the key word of future industry
8BTC: More than half of 2018 has passed. What do you think will be the key words of the industry’s development in the coming year?
Da Hongfei: I think so. In the last year or so, we’ve seen a lot of new projects emerge, and probably most of these teams are like, “I’m going to build something that’s one percent of Ethereum, or five percent of Ethereum, and think it’s a success. I think that kind of thinking is actually hard to sustain in a calmer market.
On the contrary, those teams who really have a strong vision and really want to do something far-reaching and meaningful are more likely to settle down to do things in a quieter industry. And these things will be easier to discover the next time the market gets more attention, and easier to gain market recognition.
Invest time and brains, not just money
8BTC: What advice can you share with entrepreneurs and investors who are new to blockchain or want to invest in the blockchain industry in the current market environment?
Da hong to fly:
Be a smart investor, invest your time and your brain in the industry, do something creative, not just put your money into the industry,Expect it to go up and double tomorrow. The ones I see investing time and intelligence are all good in the long run, but they are just speculative investments. They may make a lot of money in the short run, but there are ups and downs. In the end, only a few lucky people can keep what the market gives, and most of them will be returned.
There is a limit to how disruptive something can be if it meets the original definition and regulation
8BTC: Several hot industry topics recently, such as Stablecoin and STO. Compared with USDT, Circle Coin (USDC), Gemini Dollar (GUSD) and Paxos (PAX) have emerged as a new generation of stable coins that have passed auditing and even met regulatory requirements. STO, many people think it may be the next wave of wealth creation after ICO, what do you think?
Da Hongfei: The emergence of stable coins in compliance with the regulation, if the regulation remains unchanged, I think it is useless, no different from bank transfer. If there is one thing that is 100 percent consistent with the specific measures of the original regulation, rather than the actual intent of the regulation, it is likely to be the same as the original product, the original model that already exists in the world.
8BTC: But you would think that in the digital currency world, you still need a relatively stable infrastructure-like staboin, otherwise it will not be widely accepted.
Da Hongfei: Yes, I agree there is a need, but the model that is needed, if it doesn’t drive the emergence of new regulations, may not mean that much.
8BTC: Does that mean it may need to be in conjunction with the new regulatory framework, rather than in the existing regulatory framework?
Da Hongfei: Yes, if it can be defined as an original thing and it meets all the conditions of regulation, then it is an original thing in itself. If it’s defined as a bond, it’s a bond, and if it’s defined as something that meets all of the regulatory requirements of the old thing, it’s likely to work in much the same way as the old thing, at best improving efficiency.
A new thing, if it conforms to the old regulation and the old definition of something, and does not promote the emergence of a new regulatory model, is likely to be an efficient upgrade of the old thing, and the disruption it can provide is limited. It’s an improved version, not a disruptive product.