R3E Network has published v0.7.2 of neo-rs, a Rust implementation of the Neo N3 blockchain node and CLI tools. Released on Feb. 12, the update addresses RPC compatibility issues affecting nodes during initial synchronization.

Neo-rs is a Rust implementation of the Neo blockchain, providing developers with an alternative to the official C# implementation. R3E Network founder and Neo core developer Jimmy Liao has been working on the project for several years, with active development continuing through recent releases.

The project is designed as a professional Rust implementation of the Neo N3 blockchain node and CLI tools, offering a modular architecture organized into foundation, core, and application layers. The codebase includes components for cryptography, storage, networking, consensus, virtual machine execution, and RPC services.

v0.7.2 release details

The latest release fixes a cold-start RPC compatibility issue where the getnativecontracts method would fail before persisted native contract state was present in local storage. The method now returns active native contracts by falling back to registry-derived contract states when store-backed entries are unavailable.

According to the release notes, execution-spec validation improved from 270/393 (68.70%) to 390/393 (99.24%) on local neo-rs after the fix. The remaining three mismatches are attributed to policy value differences related to chain governance state and sync depth rather than RPC method failures.

The release includes no breaking changes. Users are advised to rebuild and restart node binaries after upgrading. For data directories with version-marker mismatches, using a fresh storage path or migrating storage is recommended.

R3E Network’s Rust ecosystem for Neo

Liao’s work on neo-rs complements R3E Network’s broader Rust development efforts for the Neo ecosystem. While neo-rs provides a full blockchain node implementation, R3E Network also maintains NeoRust, an SDK that enables developers to build applications on Neo N3 and Neo X using Rust.

NeoRust serves a different purpose in the ecosystem: where neo-rs is focused on node infrastructure and protocol implementation, NeoRust provides a high-level API for application developers. The SDK includes tooling for cryptography, wallet management (including BIP-39/44 HD wallets and multi-sig support), RPC-based node interaction, smart contract deployment and invocation, NEP-17 token operations, and WebSocket-based event monitoring.

NeoRust received a major maintenance release on Feb. 7 with v1.0.3, which introduced comprehensive code quality improvements, security enhancements for cryptographic operations, and platform-specific fixes for credential storage on macOS and Windows. The release followed a 10-round code review and refactoring effort addressing error handling patterns, memory security, and performance optimizations.

Together, neo-rs and NeoRust provide developers with a complete Rust-based toolchain for Neo: neo-rs enables running Rust-based blockchain infrastructure, while NeoRust enables building Rust applications that interact with Neo networks.

Recent development history

Neo-rs has seen consistent development activity over the past year. Version 0.5.0, released in November 2025, introduced Trusted Execution Environment support through a new neo-tee crate for Intel SGX-based security features. The release also separated the codebase into distinct neo-node and neo-cli binaries, with the former serving as a standalone RPC server and the latter functioning as a lightweight RPC client with over 40 command modules.

Version 0.4.0, released in August 2025, focused on production readiness, eliminating placeholder implementations and adding enterprise-grade functionality including real HTTP server support, network RTT tracking, VM exception handling, smart contract event emission, and performance monitoring.

Protocol compatibility

The project maintains byte-for-byte serialization compatibility with the official C# Neo implementation for blocks, transactions, and P2P messages. Version 0.7.x is compatible with Neo N3 v3.9.1. The README documentation indicates that compatibility has been verified through live protocol and vector parity checks against Neo v3.9.1 C# and NeoGo reference endpoints.

The implementation includes full support for Neo N3 v3.9.1 features; including P2P signature verification, BIP-032 HD wallets, BIP-039 mnemonics, NEP-30 native contracts, token management contracts, NEP-11 NFT methods, NEP-17 fungible tokens; and the complete set of native contracts; including Oracle, Notary, Treasury, and TokenManagement.

Neo-execution-specs

Alongside neo-rs, Liao created the neo-execution-specs repository to ensure protocol compatibility. The execution specifications repository, written in Python, provides a reference implementation for validating that neo-rs matches the behavior of the C# implementation. The project is maintained under the r3e-network organization and serves as a critical tool for verifying protocol compliance during neo-rs development.

Availability

The latest version of neo-rs is available on GitHub under the MIT License. The project includes Docker support; comprehensive documentation covering architecture, deployment, and operations; and example configuration files for MainNet and TestNet deployments.

The project repo can be found at the link below:
https://github.com/r3e-network/neo-rs

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