It can be very time consuming to keep up to date on a single blockchain project let alone multiple ones...

It can be very time consuming to keep up to date on a single blockchain project let alone multiple ones. If you just heard about NEO a few weeks ago it would be impossible catch up on past occurrences due to high volume of Reddit posts and articles made on the project. I’m going to try and simplify the past, present and future as much as I can into one well thought-out post. I hope I can be helpful to anyone who has been investigating like myself. I will include sources with all of my research.

imgur.com/a/NBI7S (img for mobile backround)

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**Key notes from the White Paper** docs.neo.org/en-us/
**Digital Assets**

Digital assets are programmable assets that exist in the form of electronic data. With blockchain technology, the digitization of assets can be decentralized, trustful, traceable, highly transparent, and free of intermediaries.
On the NEO blockchain, users are able to register, trade, and circulate multiple types of assets. Proving the connection between digital and physical assets is possible through digital identity.
Assets registered through a validated digital identity are protected by law.
**Digital Identity**

Digital identity refers to the identity information of individuals, organizations, and other entities that exist in electronic form.
The more mature digital identity system is based on the PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) X.509 standard.
In NEO, we will implement a set of X.509 compatible digital identity standards.
This set of digital identity standards, in addition to compatible X.509 level certificate issuance model, will also support Web Of Trust point-to-point certificate issuance model.
Our verification of identity when issuing or using digital identities includes the use of facial features, fingerprint, voice, SMS and other multi-factor authentication methods.

Other urls found in this thread:

econotimes.com/Blockchain-project-Antshares-explains-reasons-for-choosing-dBFT-over-PoW-and-PoS-659275
hackernoon.com/neo-onchain-and-its-ultimate-plan-dna-4c33e9b6bfaa
onchain.com/
github.com/DNAProject/DNA
siliconangle.com/blog/2016/10/20/onchain-partners-with-alibaba-for-blockchain-powered-email-evidence-repository/
reuters.com/article/us-fosun-blockchain/chinas-fosun-invests-in-local-version-of-bitcoin-tech-blockchain-idUSKCN1B30KM
imgur.com/a/Gc9jT
imgur.com/a/4CDhw
cityofzion.io/dapps/1
drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4wu5lNlukwybEstaEJMZ19kbjQ
reddit.com/r/NEO/comments/6ry4s9/japan_the_neo_core_team_starts_out_on_an/
youtube.com/watch?v=SgTQ32CkxlU
reddit.com/r/NEO/comments/6ssfx1/neo_meetup_in_tokyo_august_10th_2017_2100h/
reddit.com/r/NEO/comments/6wbebr/neo_taipei_meetup_long_post/
8btc.com/onchain-hyperledger
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperledger
hyperledger.org/testimonials/onchain
51cto.com/art/201705/539824.htm?mobile
finance.sina.cn/2017-04-13/detail-ifyeifqx5554606.d.html?from=wap
gz.chinanews.com/content/2017/05-28/73545.shtml
coingeek.com/cryptocurrency-trading-poised-to-make-a-return-in-china-report/
8btc.com/onchain-ribenjingjichanyesheng
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/LmXnW7MtzOX_fqIo7diU9A
8btc.com/onchain-microsoft
reddit.com/r/NEO/comments/6puffo/we_are_da_hongfei_and_erik_zhang_founders_of_neo/dksm5ga/
youtube.com/watch?v=qpUdTIQdjVE&feature=youtu.be&t=1m16s
medium.com/@TheCoinEconomy/neo-founder-da-hongfei-advised-china-on-ico-exchange-ban-says-govt-4631b9f7971
neo.org/en-us/blog/details/65
github.com/neo-project
github.com/CityOfZion
twitter.com/AnonBabble

**Smart Contracts**
The NeoContract smart contract system is the biggest feature of the seamless integration of the existing developer ecosystem.
Developers do not need to learn a new programming language but use C#, Java and other mainstream programming languages in their familiar IDE environments (Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc.) for smart contract development, debugging and compilation.
NEO's Universal Lightweight Virtual Machine, NeoVM, has the advantages of high certainty, high concurrency, and high scalability.
The NeoContract smart contract system will allow millions of developers around the world to quickly carry out the development of smart contracts.
**Economic Model**
NEO has two native tokens, NEOand NeoGas
NEO represents the right to manage the network. Management rights include voting for bookkeeping, NEO network parameter changes, and so on. The minimum unit of NEO is 1 and tokens cannot be subdivided.
GAS is the fuel token for the realization of NEO network resource control. The NEO network charges for the operation and storage of tokens and smart contracts, thereby creating economic incentives for bookkeepers and preventing the abuse of resources. The minimum unit of GAS is 0.00000001.
**Distribution Mechanism**
NEO's 100 million tokens are divided into two portions.
The first portion is 50 million tokens distributed proportionally to supporters of NEO during the crowdfunding.
This portion has been distributed.

The second portion is 50 million NEO managed by the NEO Council to support NEO's long-term development, operation and maintenance and ecosystem.
The NEO in this portion has a lockout period of 1 year and is unlocked only after October 16, 2017.
This portion **WILL NOT enter the exchanges** and is only for long-term support of NEO projects. The plans for it are as below:

▪ 10 million tokens (10% total) will be used to motivate NEO developers and members of the NEO Council

▪ 10 million tokens (10% total) will be used to motivate developers in the NEO ecosystem

▪ 15 million tokens (15% total) will be used to cross-invest in other block-chain projects, which are owned by the NEO Council and are used only for NEO projects

▪ 15 million (15% total) will be retained as contingency

▪ The annual use of NEO in principle **shall NOT exceed** 15 million tokens
**GAS distribution**

GAS is generated with each new block.
The initial total amount of GAS is zero.
With the increasing rate of new block generation, the total limit of 100 million GAS will be achieved in about 22 years.
The interval between each block is about 15-20 seconds, and 2 million blocks are generated in about one year.
According to this release curve, 16% of the GAS will be created in the first year, 52% of the GAS will be created in the first four years, and 80% of the GAS will be created in the first 12 years.
GAS will be distributed proportionally in accordance with the NEO holding ratio, recorded in the corresponding addresses.
NEO holders can initiate a claim transaction at any time and claim these GAS tokens at their holding addresses.
**Consensus mechanism: dBFT**

The dBFT is called the Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerant, a Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus mechanism that enables large-scale participation in consensus through proxy voting.
The holder of the NEO token can, by voting, pick the bookkeeper it supports. The selected group of bookkeepers, through BFT algorithm, reach a consensus and generate new blocks.
Voting in the NEO network continues in real time, rather than in accordance with a fixed term.

**Cross-chain assets exchange agreement**

NeoX has been extended on existing double-stranded atomic assets exchange protocols to allow multiple participants to exchange assets across different chains and to ensure that all steps in the entire transaction process succeed or fail together.
In order to achieve this function, we need to use NeoContract function to create a contract account for each participant.
If other blockchains are not compatible with NeoContract, they can be compatible with NeoX as long as they can provide simple smart contract functionality.
**Cross-chain distributed transaction protocol**

Cross-chain distributed transactions mean that multiple steps of a transaction are scattered across different blockchains and that the consistency of the entire transaction is ensured.
This is an extension of cross-chain assets exchange, extending the behavior of assets exchange into arbitrary behavior.
In layman's terms, NeoX makes it possible for cross-chain smart contracts where a smart contract can perform different parts on multiple chains, either succeeding or reverting as a whole.
This gives excellent possibilities for cross-chain collaborations and we are exploring cross-chain smart contract application scenarios.
**Distributed Storage Protocol: NeoFS**

NeoFS is a distributed storage protocol that utilizes Distributed Hash Table technology.
NeoFS indexes the data through file content (Hash) rather than file path (URI).
Large files will be divided into fixed-size data blocks that are distributed and stored in many different nodes

**Anti-quantum cryptography mechanism: NeoQS**

The emergence of quantum computers poses a major challenge to RSA and ECC-based cryptographic mechanisms.
Quantum computers can solve the large number of decomposition problems (which RSA relies on) and the elliptic curve discrete logarithm (which ECC relies on) in a very short time.
NeoQS (Quantum Safe) is a lattice-based cryptographic mechanism.
At present, quantum computers do not have the ability to quickly solve the Shortest Vector Problem (SVP) and the Closest Vector Problem (CVP), which is considered to be the most reliable algorithm for resisting quantum computers.

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**Reasons for choosing dBFT over PoW and PoS:**

With the phenomenal success of Bitcoin and its increasing mainstream adoption, the project’s unbounded appetite for energy grew accordingly. Today, the average Bitcoin transaction costs as much energy as powering 3.67 average American homes, which amounts to about 3000 times more than a comparable Credit Card settlement.

This mind boggling amount of energy is not, as it is commonly believed, being wasted. It is put to good use: securing the Bitcoin network and rendering attacks on it infeasible. However, the cost of this security mechanism and its implications for an increasingly warming and resource hungry planet led almost the entire crypto industry to the understanding that an alternative has to be found, at least if we’re interested in seeing blockchain technology gaining overwhelming mainstream adoption.

The most popular alternative to PoW, used by most alternative cryptocurrency systems, is called Proof-of-Stake, or PoS. PoS is highly promising in the sense that it doesn’t require blockchain nodes to perform arduous, and otherwise useless, cryptographic tasks in order to render potential attacks costly and infeasible. Hence, this algorithm cuts the power requirements of PoS blockchains down to sane and manageable amounts, allowing them to be more scalable without guzzling up the planet's energy reserves.

As the name suggests, instead of requiring proof of cryptographic work, PoS requires blockchain nodes to proof stake in the currency itself. This means that in order for a blockchain node to be eligible for a verification reward, the node has to hold a certain amount of currency in the wallet associated with it. This way, in order to execute an attack, a malevolent node would have to acquire the majority of the existing coin supply, rendering attacks not only costly but also meaningless, since the attackers would primarily harm themselves.

PoS, as well as PoW, simply cause the blockchain to fork into two alternative versions if for some reason consensus breaks. In fact, most blockchains fork most of the time, only to converge back to a single source of truth a short while afterwards.

By many crypto enthusiasts, this obvious bug is very often regarded as a feature, allowing several versions of the truth to survive and compete for public adoption until a resolution is generated. This sounds nice in theory, but if we want to see blockchain technology seriously disrupt and/or augment the financial sector, this ever lurking possibility of the blockchain splitting into two alternative versions cannot be tolerated.

Furthermore, even the fastest PoS blockchains out there can accomodate a few hundred transactions per second, compare that to Visa’s 56,000 tx/s and the need for an alternative becomes clear as day.

A blockchain securing global stock markets does not have the privilege to fork into two alternative versions and just sit and wait it out until the market (or what’s left of it) declares a winner. What belongs to whom should be engraved in an immutable record, functioning as a single source of truth with no glitches permitted.

After investigating and studying the crypto industry and blockchain technologies for several years, we came to the conclusion that the delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance alternative (or dBFT) is best suited for such a system. It provides swift transaction verification times, de-incentivises most attack vectors and upholds a single blockchain version with no risk of forks or alternative blockchain records emerging - regardless of how much computing power, or coins an attacker possesses.
The term Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) derives its name from the Byzantine Generals problem in Game Theory and Computer Science, describing the problematic nature of achieving consensus in a distributed system with suboptimal communication between agents which do not necessarily trust each other.

The BFT algorithm arranges the relationship between blockchain nodes in such a way that the network becomes as good as resilient to the Byzantine Generals problem, and allows the system to remain consensus even if some nodes bare malicious intentions or simply malfunction.

To achieve this, Antshare’s version of the delegated BFT (or dBFT) algorithm acknowledges two kinds of players in the blockchain space: professional node operators, called bookkeeping nodes, who run nodes as a source of income, and users who are interested in accessing blockchain advantages. Theoretically, this differentiation does not exist in PoW and most PoS environments, practically, however, most Bitcoin users do not operate miners, which are mostly located in specialized venues run by professionals. At Antshares we understand the importance of this naturally occurring division of labor and use it to provide better security for our blockchain platform.

Accordingly, block verification is achieved through a consensus game held between specialized bookkeeping nodes, which are appointed by ordinary nodes through a form of delegated voting process. In every verification round one of the bookkeeping nodes is pseudo-randomly appointed to broadcast its version of the blockchain to the rest of the network. If ⅔ of the remaining nodes agree with this version, consensus is secured and the blockchain marches on. If less than ⅔ of the network agrees, a different node is appointed to broadcast its version of the truth to the rest of the system, and so forth until consensus is established.

In this way, successful system attacks are almost impossible to execute unless the overwhelming majority of the network is interested in committing financial suicide. Additionally, the system is fork proof, and at every given moment only one version of the truth exists. Without complicated cryptographic puzzles to solve, nodes operate much faster and are able to compete with centralized transaction methods.

econotimes.com/Blockchain-project-Antshares-explains-reasons-for-choosing-dBFT-over-PoW-and-PoS-659275

**OnChain**

It is important to note the technical difference between Onchain and NEO. Onchain is a private VC-backed company with over 40 employees. NEO is a public platform with different community-led groups contributing to this public project. There exists NEO council comprised of the original NEO creators, employees from Onchain, full time NEO council members and there is also the first Western based group called City of Zion. This confusion is likely the source of the rumour about Antshares and Alibaba having a connection. Onchain and NEO are separate entities who are intimately related via cross-chain communications and similar designs.

Onchain, a Shanghai-based blockchain R&D company, first started developing Antshares in February of 2014 which will eventually become the foundation of DNA. Onchain was founded by CEO Da HongFei and CTO Erik Zhang in response to the attention from private companies garnered by the development of Antshares, China’s first public blockchain. In contrast to the weeks-old start-ups launching ICOs that is happening currently in the blockchain world, it took them 22 long months of R&D to even begin providing services to their first customers. Finally, in April 2016, the first whitepaper on consensus protocol from China was born—the dBFT (delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance) protocol.

2016 was a busy year for Onchain and they really picked up the pace that year. Other than continuing the development of Antshares, brushing shoulders with Fortune 500 companies, Onchain became the first Chinese blockchain company to join Hyperledger—an open source blockchain project started by the Linux Foundation specifically focusing on the development of private and consortium chains for businesses. It is here where the Da HongFei and Erik Zhang, entered the hyperbolic time chamber that is now known as Fabric, a platform by Hyperledger for distributed ledger solutions, and has consequently helped them to develop many aspects underpinning the design of DNA.
In June of 2016, during the first of many future partnerships with Microsoft China, Onchain founded Legal Chain specifically targeting the inadequacies of the digital applications within the legal system. In 2005, (Digital Signature Act) was passed into national law which permitted an effective digital signatures to gain the same legal rights as a real signature.
In company with Microsoft China, they are also aiming to integrate the technology with Microsoft’s face and voice recognition API function to kick start this digital revolution within the legal system. At the same time, a partnership was formed with FaDaDa, a third-party platform for electronic contracts that has processed over 27 million contracts to date, to provide secure evidence storage with DNA. If that’s not enough, they were also voted as KPMG’s top 50 Fintech Company in China and established a relationship with the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry which led to the recent tour to Japan. Finally, at the end of 2016 they announced a partnership with Alibaba to provide attested email service for Ali Cloud with Legal Chain where it provides a proof-of-existence for a blockchain-powered email evidence repository for enterprise-level use.