2019 Year in Review
To round off 2019, Neo News Today (NNT) released a series of articles looking back at Neo’s year from various perspectives.
The first article was an overview of Neo-supported events that took place throughout 2019. Spanning more than a dozen countries, NGD and community groups alike co-ordinated on activities to promote awareness and education of the Neo platform. The overview article highlighted a multitude of Neo-based workshops, meetups, conferences, hackathons, and lectures held across the globe. Flagship events for 2019 included the second DevCon in Seattle, US, the first Neo GameCon in Akihabara, Tokyo, and the first Neo Community Assembly in Shanghai, China.
NNT also released an overview of the Neo-oriented online events that occurred in 2019, which highlighted NGD’s dedication to increasing the number of online activities for the Neo community. These activities were designed to give the community more access to projects, create better engagement with members of the ecosystem, and provide educational opportunities to help developers learn about the Neo blockchain. Examples of online events included live tutorials and walkthroughs, the LOVE NEO video interview series, Neo Live AMA events with ecosystem partners, and video tutorials. In addition to NGD’s increased efforts, community developer groups, such as Neo NEXT, grew their online outreach as well.
Turning attention to development, the next article was an overview that followed the progress of Neo3 development in 2019, which was first introduced during a presentation by Neo co-founder and core developer, Erik Zhang, at the second Neo DevCon. Changes to the protocol have chiefly focused on increasing TPS, efficiency, and reliability, to be able to support large-scale commercial applications.
Following the Neo3 progress review, NNT published a look back at the achievements of the Neo developer community in 2019, which explored the significant accomplishments and general direction of Neo’s diverse and decentralized developer community. The article highlighted the work contributed by COZ, Neo St. Petersburg Competence Center (NeoSPCC), NGD Seattle, NewEconoLabs (NEL), neow3j, NEO-ONE, Neo NEXT, O3 Labs, NeoResearch, and Alienworks.
Finally, NNT reached out to various representatives from across the Neo ecosystem to collect their thoughts on 2019, soliciting input from individuals with a range of differing perspectives. Respondents comprised individuals from Neo Global Development (NGD) Shanghai, NGD Seattle, Red4Sec, COZ/Moonlight, a Neo Telegram moderator, and NeoResearch. Topics covered included the broader blockchain industry trends from 2019, the impact of those trends on the Neo ecosystem, how the continued market downturn amalgamated the Neo developer community, and development efforts that have paved the way for Neo3 in 2020.
Neo
On Christmas day, NNT released a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year video, which included well wishes from members of NGD, NeoResearch, NNT, Red4Sec, neow3j, Neo Economy, and NeoSPCC.
NGD Shanghai announced the winners of the Neo Christmas giveaway campaign, which included the Blockchain Cuties winner, the 0xWarriors winner, the Blocklords winners, and the Cardmaker winners.
NGD Seattle head, John deVadoss, participated at the Genesis DevCon to discuss developing blockchain-based applications.
NNT Catch Up
Veronica Wong, CEO of SafePal, joined the NNT Podcast to discuss the mission and goals of SafePal, team industry experience, user experience, security, planned support for a fiat on/off ramp, SafePal’s relationship with Neo, and more.
Neo, alongside TomoChain, co-hosted a meetup and workshop entitled the “Embrace and Connect” in Hanoi, Vietnam. The day-long event was broken into two sessions, a Neo meetup, and a Neo/TomoChain workshop. The co-hosted event was the first between the two public blockchains since announcing a strategic partnership in September 2019.
Developer Groups
Neo NEXT partnered with FishChain, Neo World, CryptoFast, Cardmaker, Blockchain Cuties, GameCreator, and Monster World to distribute holiday gifts to users of each of the games. The giveaway campaign concluded on Monday, January 6th.
Neo NEXT updated its Neo Line wallet for Android and iOS, which added an information column and an application section. The information column includes sections for a Chinese newsletter, community information, English news, and a Twitter section.
Neo NEXT released its year in review for 2019, which highlighted events attended, the conclusion of the Neo dApp Global Blockchain Application Development Challenge, community online live sharing classes, the launch of the Neo dApp store and Neo Line wallet, and the rebranding of the NEXT block explorer.
NewEconoLabs (NEL) released an updated Teemo browser extension application, which now offers support for the Neo3 TestNet.
Ecosystem
December 23rd, Jarvis+ released its fortnightly report, which highlighted the addition of new functions to the Jarvis+ WeChat application and the deployment of a new bot, “Xiaojia.”
December 26th, Switcheo announced the winners of its Christmas giveaway campaign.
December 27th, Nash announced the winners of its referral giveaway that concluded on Thursday, December 26th.
December 27th, Alphacat added a new blockchain analytics application, ViewBase, to the ACAT Store.
December 27th, Trinity Protocol released its fortnightly report, which highlighted technological progress and a study of Neo 3.0 architecture.
December 31st, QLC Chain added topup functionality on its QWallet application for mobile operators in Singapore and Indonesia.
December 31st, Nash released its annual review, which documented the major milestones and accomplishments completed as part of its mission to making transparent and decentralized finance accessible to everyone. Following the summary of its progress through the year, Nash went on to outline the services that it aims to deliver in 2020 as the platform seeks to achieve general availability.
December 31st, NEO support was added to the SWFT cross-chain wallet and payments application, which also offers instant token swaps.
January 2nd, Jarvis+ released its 2019 year in review for events and partnerships, which included speaking at various conferences in China, speaking at the second Neo DevCon in Seattle, US, and establishing partnerships with Microsoft, KuCoin, and TrueChain.
January 3rd, Alphacat launched staking rewards on its ACAT Store, which is currently tracking 74 yield-bearing assets.
January 3rd, Jarvis+ released its 2019 year in review, which included the launch of the “Xiaojia” instant messaging robot, a Telegram bounty robot, and the improvements to the data analysis functions of social media robots.
About The Author: Dylan Grabowski
Dylan is a reformed urban planner with a passion for covering the Neo ecosystem. His objective as a writer for Neo News Today is to report news in an objective, fact-based, non-sensational manner. When not behind a computer screen, he can be found in the mountains rock climbing. Find Dylan on Twitter (@GrabowskiDylan).
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