NEO
Neo Global Development announced the Neo Frontier Launchpad competition, which begins Monday, May 24, 2021. The event is designed to encourage developers to start new projects on Neo N3 and offers more than US $100,000 in prizes and incubation opportunities.
Three major prizes of US $12,000 equivalent in NEO will be awarded to the best NFT, DeFi, and General projects. Major prize winners will also receive incubation support through the Neo EcoBoost program. Eight teams will win Excellence prizes totaling $5,000 equivalent in NEO and a one-hour consultation with the NGD EcoGrowth team. Custom vested NEO packages will also be provided to winning teams to encourage development beyond the hackathon. Winners will be announced on July 21, 2021.
Neo announced the upgrade of the N3 TestNet to the new RC2 version. The TestNet upgrade was performed by NGD on May 18, making it available for use by developers. RC2 features a range of improvements since the last iteration, such as a new C# compiler, the addition of a features field to the contract manifest, and more.
NGD hosted the first Neo Live of 2021 with O3 Labs communications director, Matt Powers, as a guest. In the AMA, Powers shared more information about O3 Swap with the Neo community. He noted the O3 Swap developers are placing a high priority on improving the user experience during cross-chain processes.
NNT Catch Up
Neo News Today hosted StackOS co-founder and chief architect, Vishnu Korde, on episode 53 of the NNT podcast. Discussion topics include the journey of StackOS since its inception, how StackOS simplifies developers lives, support for N3, its relationship with NGD, the importance of advisors, interoperability, and more.
In the interview, Korde talked about how StackOS will integrate features built within the Neo ecosystem as part of its decentralized cloud network. Looking forward, StackOS intends to support NeoFS, for use as a decentralized file storage network where applications can store data.
COZ recently announced new versions of the Mamba and Neon.js SDKs, making them available for developers looking to build with the new N3 RC2 version. The team also announced the start of FlyBy, its own internal hackathon.
The Flyby hackathon is intended as a test-drive for N3 tooling in the lead up to the public Neo Frontier Hackathon launch. The event pitted seven teams against each other, who participated in a friendly competition while building projects to help set examples for future Neo developers. Projects will be made public following the event’s conclusion on May 21.
Developer Groups
Development communities continued to push out project updates with N3 RC2 compatibility as the Neo Frontier Launchpad hackathon approaches. NGD Enterprise, AxLabs, and COZ each announced the release of new product versions that will offer developers various entry points to the new Neo ecosystem.
Neo SPCC released an N3 RC2-compatible version of NeoGo. Alongside core changes, the v0.95.0 update also adds CLI support for NEP-11 NFTs and other small improvements for node operators, plus a number of bug fixes.
NGD Enterprise also released a handful of sample contracts for the Neo Pet Shop. The Neo Pet Shop offers sample code to mint NFTs and incorporates oracle functionality.
NEO-ONE announced it is looking for a blockchain software engineer to join the team. Candidates should be full-stack developers with a minimum of three years of development experience. The successful candidate will be responsible for working on Neo Tracker and NEO-ONE products.
Ecosystem
May 17, Switcheo updated the UI for the Demex non-custodial exchange.
May 17, DeepBrain Chain released its fortnightly report, which noted several updates to the cloud platform, wallet frontend, website backend, DBC MainNet, and more.
May 17, Poly Network announced it had exceeded $4.5 billion in cross-chain transactions across 114,000 addresses on multiple blockchains.
May 18, Poly Network integrated support for OKExChain, making it the tenth public blockchain supported by the interoperability protocol.
May 18, O3 Labs integrated O3 token support on the O3 Swap platform, allowing users to deposit, stake, and withdraw O3.
May 18, TranslateMe added the Zulu language to API v1.1, with approximately 30,000 sentences collected from individual contributors.
May 19, Poly Network established a partnership with Lever, an AMM-based decentralized margin trading protocol.
May 19, MyMingo reported more than 1,000,000 FLM tokens have been staked through its platform.
May 20, QLC Chain participated in an AMA hosted on the Binance English official Telegram channel. Chief architect, Allen Lee, discussed QLC Chain’s background, partnering with telecom network operators, what makes the project unique from other IoT platforms, and much more.
May 20, TranslateMe updated its Spanish API and Bengali API to v1.2, building upon contributions from individual contributors.
May 20, DeepBrain Chain announced the official launch of the DBC MainNet. The team noted DBC tokens can be swapped through Huobi, Kucoin, and Gate.io at an undetermined date in June 2021. DBC also announced it is conducting a video guide campaign aimed at teaching users how to use the platform.
Token Listings
NEO listed on the Wootrade custodial exchange.
NEO was listed for contract trading on the Phemex custodial exchange.
O3 Labs O3 token was listed on the Huobi custodial exchange.
O3 Labs O3 token was listed on the AOFEX custodial exchange.
O3 Labs O3 token was listed on the DODO DEX.
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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