NEO
Erik Zhang and Da Hongfei held an Ask Me Anything (AMA) this week. The community was invited to submit questions, with Hongfei and Erik providing answers on August 3rd. It had been over a year since the last AMA, which was held on July 27th, 2017.
NEO partnered with CertiK, a formal verification company for smart contracts and blockchain ecosystems. CertiK is comprised of PhD’s from Yale and Columbia, as well as engineers who’ve worked at Google, Facebook, and Freewheel, amongst other Silicon Valley-based companies. Key features of the formal verification company include a “layer-based decomposition approach, pluggable proof engine, machine-checkable proof objects, certified decentralized application (dApp) libraries, and smart labelling.”
Erik Zhang was interviewed on a Chinese online TV show, “Chain Show.” Erik discussed topics such the role of project founders, NEO 3.0, and NEO’s place in the blockchain industry. The English transcript can be viewed by following the above link.
Partnerships
NEO Global Capital (NGC) has recently invested in Splyse’s Master Contract Token (MCT), by purchasing a block of MCT tokens. The investment serves as a signal of NGC’s belief in the “long-term viability and diversity of use cases for MCT,” and its supporting role in the NEO ecosystem.
Meet the Developer
Meet Asif Raza, creator of SmartT: a nOS decentralized application (dApp) that utilizes the Master Contract Token (MCT) token. SmartT is an event ticketing dApp built on the NEO blockchain and nOS client. Asif is originally from Pakistan, currently resides in South Korea, and is a PhD candidate at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) with plans to graduate in December of 2018.
Upcoming Events
The NEO Global Development (NGD) Tokyo NEO Blockchain Challenge has been scheduled to take place in the Ariake district Tokyo, Japan. The specific event location has yet to be determined, but it will run from Friday, August 24th through Sunday the 26th. Entry to the event is completely free, and there are several prizes up for grabs. A total prize pool of JP¥2,000,000 will be awarded in its GAS equivalent.
NEO supported the Blockchain Summit Latam (BSL) hackathon that took place August 3rd and 4th. BSL aims to provide individuals with a chance to learn, form teams and accelerate development of their own blockchain solutions. The hackathon was held at the Startup Chile headquarters in Santiago.
Reports and Developments
Zeepin announced its GalaCloud platform, which is an encrypted cloud storage system that provides an additional layer of security, whilst also connecting with other dApps in the Zeepin ecosystem. Pain points the GalaCloud seeks to address include security threats, data monopolies, and counter-party risk. The GalaCloud whitepaper is slated to be released soon.
DAD Chain has announced plans to integrate NEO and Ontology as part of its decentralized ad network. The DAD project asserts that the Ontology blockchain can be used to restore trust between the actors in the advertising economy, and thus tame some of its existing problems. Much of the proposed value of the DAD project comes from eliminating fraudulent advertising traffic and impressions. The DAD token will be a NEP-5 token registered on the NEO blockchain, but is planned to eventually migrate to the DAD MainNet.
Moonlight has released its full-featured token sale template, which intends to make token sales much more accessible for C# developers in the NEO ecosystem. The template’s release follows the news about Moonlight’s own token sale, which recently began the initial KYC (Know Your Customer) phase in preparation for the first round of sales. Additionally, Moonlight also announced NEO Global Capital partner, Piyush Chaplot, has joined the project as an advisor.
Thor released its progress report for the month of July, which aims to develop a platform to connect employers with gig workers as well as provide instant payments, healthcare, and retirement plans. The Thor Payments and Benefits app has been listed on the iOS App Store, and required money transmitter licenses are expected to take 6 – 12 months to acquire.
Airdrops
For The Win (FTW) and O3 have teamed up to airdrop 2,000,000 FTW tokens. For The Win is a decentralized gambling platform on the NEO blockchain. To be eligible to receive the tokens, users must sign up through the news feed on the O3 wallet and meet certain criteria. Tokens will be distributed on August 15th.
Tech Updates
nOS has announced the deployment of 60+ dApps to nOSNet. Dean van Dugteren, founder of the virtual operating system, has confirmed the news, and claims this makes nOS one of the largest dApp ecosystems in the world.
Aphelion released its desktop wallet and decentralized exchange (DEX) v2.25. The DEX is finishing up its beta development on the NEO TestNet and has now integrated a revenue sharing mechanism to redistribute spent trading fees.
Alphacat launched the ACAT Store, with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), EOS, and NEO forecasts. The alpha version of the ACAT Store was released for mobile browsers. After registering for an ACAT Store account, users gain three free forecasts for each of the available cryptocurrencies. Market forecasting will be a core offering of the Alphacat project, but other services such as risk management and technical analysis are planned for addition as well.
QLC Chain expanded upon its back-end asset ranking algorithm, which is used to rank virtual private network (VPN) assets on the WinQ platform. QLC Chain believes “the quality of the VPN assets is crucial for user adoption.” Additionally, QLC Chain will now provide three free connections to VPN assets, and continue to give 100 TestNet QLC to users who create new wallets.
Token Swap
Alchemint announced its SDT to SDS token swap, which occurred on August 1st. As the team is preparing to launch an optimized MainNet contract, they’ve used the opportunity to rebrand the Special Drawing Token (SDT) to Standards (SDS). This is intended to emphasize the correlation between SDS and the various stablecoins such as SDUSD and SDCNY that will operate within the Alchemint system.
Token Sales
SENNO, a Hong Kong-based sentiment analysis platform, has opened its private token sale to investors. SENNO aims to create an ecosystem of crowd wisdom in real time by using distributed sentiment analysis and AI algorithms to read and interpret user-generated content on the Internet.
NurseToken is scheduled to begin its token sale on September 1st, 2018. NurseToken is a project that aims to build a decentralized credentialing, incentive, and payment ecosystem for medical nurses by utilizing the private XERU, and public NEO and Ontology blockchains.
MainNet Launch
Pikciochain launched its MainNet in July. Pikciochain is a distributed platform that specializes in data collection, data verification, and personal data exchange. The Pikciochain MainNet is focussed on engaging startups and partners in the corporate realm. In its current state, MainNet is primarily a peer-to-peer layer that provides securitization and transfer of data. Pikciochain aims to further establish MainNet by January of 2019, through the introduction of “Proof of Usage” and the smart contract engine to the platform.
Token Listings
Coupit’s token (COUP) planned to be listed on Switcheo on August 6th.
Effect.ai (EFX) and THEKEY (TKY) are to be listed on LATOKEN Exchange.
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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