On Oct. 17, 2021, Neo celebrated the fifth anniversary of the launch of its MainNet. As part of the celebration, Neo released a five-year overview video and a message from co-founder, Da Hongfei. In addition, Neo News Today launched a GAS tipping bot on the r/Neo subreddit, as well as a special five-year anniversary podcast episode.

History

Neo launched in 2016 as “AntShares” and focused primarily on smart contracts. In the Summer of 2017, the project was rebranded to Neo and expanded its vision to service a new Smart Economy, including digital identity and digital assets. Throughout 2017 and 2018, the Neo 2.0 network supported dozens of dApps and new use cases. Meanwhile, the core team was busy behind the scenes applying lessons learned and dreaming up improvements to Neo.

In April 2019, Neo co-founder and core developer, Erik Zhang, published a roadmap documenting the vision for Neo 3.0. Eventually debuting as N3, the new version was idealized as an optimized version of the Neo 2.0 protocol, aimed at introducing new functionality that would allow the blockchain to support large-scale commercial applications.

The Neo developer community worked tirelessly through 2019, gathering in September at the Neo Community Assembly in Shanghai to collaborate on N3. The NCA featured developers, researchers, and other Neo community members from around the world coming together for a week of discussion on the direction of Neo.

Working through the pandemic in 2020, Neo Global Development and the entire global community maintained course and momentum throughout the year.

At 9:00 a.m. (UTC) on Aug. 2, 2021, Neo achieved its N3 MainNet launch. Neo’s core developers met the task of packing vital native functionality such as decentralized storage, oracles, and on-chain governance into the protocol. Meanwhile, community groups from Europe, Asia, and the Americas delivered best-in-class developer experiences for key infrastructure across numerous languages.

The following releases were made to commemorate the five year anniversary.

Neo’s retrospective

Neo published a look back at some of the project’s achievements over the past five years.

A message from Da Hongfei

Da released a video praising Neo’s existing community and calling for new community members to use their talents to contribute to Neo’s growth.

NNT Fifth Anniversary Podcast

NNT released a special edition podcast episode, speaking with 11 prominent members of the Neo community. Representatives from groups such as NGD, COZ, Neo SPCC, Switcheo, TranslateMe, and more shared their thoughts on Neo’s past, present, and future.

r/Neo GasBot

NNT released its r/Neo GasBot, which allows users on the r/Neo subReddit to easily send and receive tips in GAS. When users are tipped, a wallet tied to their Reddit account is automatically created for them. Users can also create wallets, fill them with GAS, and tip other users.

The initiative is another of NNT’s efforts as a Neo Council member to give back to the community and help grow the ecosystem.

To kick off the celebrations and help get the Reddit community acquainted with the GasBot, NNT announced intentions to distribute 50 GAS to participants in the announcement thread.

The Reddit thread can be found at the link below: https://www.reddit.com/r/NEO/comments/qa6a18/introducing_the_rneo_gasbot_send_and_receive_tips/