What is the difference between NEO and other clones of ETH? why have you reserved 50% of NEO tokens for yourself and are they generating GAS? when I tried to find something about how to obtain some NEO all I could find was the links to some exchanges asking me to buy, why would you call it a cryptocurrency while you are the only one with access to the whole supply? that's the definition of centralization.
NEO is not a clone of Ethereum, but the improved version of Ethereum just like Ethereum was the improved version of Bitcoin.
NEO has:
1) Support for multiple programming languages unlike Ethereum which only supports Solidity.
2) It uses the decentralised Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus system (dBFT) as opposed to Proof of Work or Proof of Stake. As a result of that, NEO can already handle 1000 transactions per second and with optimisation 10,000 transactions per second. At the moment Bitcoin and Ethereum have respectively 7 and 15 transactions per second.
3) NEO has the infrastructure for a digital identity in the system. This makes it optimal for business and legal nation supported activity.
4) NEO cannot fork due to the dBFT and therefore cannot cause a crisis in confidence like Bitcoin and Ethereum can.
5) It would cost about as much energy around 2020 to run Bitcoin as the entire nation of Denmark uses. In contrast NEO is one of the most energy efficient solutions around. This also means that whatever fees other networks can charge, NEO can ALWAYS undercut them.
6) NEO will be quantum resistant. This is far more important than most realise as Western powers who are losing power due to blockchain technology and the BRICS alliance seek to undermine the competition to central banking. Expect the Langley supercomputers to steal all funds in the accounts of the low quality cryptocurrencies in the near future.
7) NEO focuses not on being a 'cryptocurrency' as so many others do, but more as a platform on which a smart economy can run. Everything NEO does is optimised for exactly that.
8 ) NEO is the first blockchain created in China. Various Western companies have attempted to penetrate the Chinese markets and they failed time after time. China is also already the greatest industrial power of this time and the full extent of that industrial power is not yet visible as the USD as world reserve currency has not been fully dethroned, but it will happen in the next few years. NEO will thus almost certainly find the greatest acceptance among the greatest industrial power of the world.
9) Various countries across the world are already developing national currencies to be put on blockchain including Russia and China. Whether you know it or not, Russia and China will be backing their blockchain based currencies with gold for maximum trust. All cryptocurrencies which do not have something to offer besides the assumption that they are 'money' will take a massive hit as they cannot properly compete when the world goes to asset backed currency to fill the vacuum that the USD as world reserve currency left. NEO has significant added value as its primary function is not to pretend to be a form of real money, but instead a key platform for the smart economy.
10) As NEO does not market itself as a currency, it can never be negatively affected by countries who seek to crack down on cryptocurrencies (as Australia for example recently is attempting to do). NEO's digital identity infrastructure can make it comply perfectly with the regulations of countries. As a matter of fact, it would appear that NEO has a template ready near the end of September or beginning of October which allows ICOs to be launched and be in compliance with the laws of practically all nations on the Earth (including the new SEC regulations).
NEO is a community project. It is not owned by anyone. The 50 million shares are not owned by the founders. The remaining 50 million NEO will be distributed as follows:
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
Da Hongfei has already stated that he expected the annual use of NEO to fall below the 15 million NEO tokens as the rise in price has greatly enhanced the NEO budgets.
Also note that this use of the 50 million NEO tokens can rightfully be called point 11 in favour of NEO. Ethereum in its first years had massive inflation and that inflation only went to its miners without giving much back of value. NEO on the other hand uses the inflation that it has to build the NEO blockchain further. The benefits of this should exceed the costs.
So what is the catch? NEO only has 3 potential downsides at the moment and I expect each and everyone of them to be fully resolved in the very best way possible:
1) NEO is not yet as decentralised as it ultimately will be. The founders acknowledge this and this will be resolved as more and more of the full potential of the NEO blockchain gets deployed.
2) There would be ways to affect the voting for nodes in a way advantageous to NEO cartels, but NEO supporters have been in talks with Eric Zhang to further perfect and decentralise this process. A solution thus seems to have been found already to this.
3) NEO still has to build various facets of its development plan. (Then again, so do practically all other blockchains)
What is not often known is that NEO was developed at the most elite universities of China. NEO does have some China's very best and brightest behind it.
