Ethereum: Ethereum’s goal is to be the platform for DApps and they are largely accomplishing this. They own the DApp market right now. Their roadmap is all about giving users and developers more control and more options in developing their applications.
NEO: NEO is working towards developing a product for the future. It not only rebranded from Antshares to NEO in June of 2017, but they refocused their marketing as well — with enormous success. Neo’s objective, while ultimately utilizing many of the same technologies as Ethereum, is to be the platform for a new smart economy.
The biggest difference between NEO and Ethereum is NEO’s focus on a smart economy. If we want to fully understand NEO, we need to understand why this distinction is important.
What is NEO doing to prepare itself for the smart economy?
NEO places particular emphasis on staying regulatory compliant.
To do this, they need:
Digital Identity
Anonymity is great. I think privacy should be at the forefront of today’s technological developments and discussions. But if companies and governments are operating on the blockchain, digitizing their assets, and issuing smart contracts, all under the watchful eye of the government, they can’t have anonymity. For a platform to be regulatory compliant, digital identity — a verifiable identity in digital form — is a necessary evil.
What about Ethereum: Ethereum requires other DApps to develop digital identities which can then be secured on the Ethereum blockchain. This isn’t so unlike how it will work with NEO — however NEO has made it clear, through its plan to incorporate digital identity with its bookkeeper nodes, that integration of digital identity is of central importance to the NEO ecosystem.
NEO’s complex network
The economy is complex; it has so many interconnected pieces. NEO’s platform is complex, with partnerships galore. Fully researching and understanding this is difficult. But I did it, so you don’t have to! Refer back to this visual to have a solid picture of how this network interacts.