Bitcoin may be a bubble, but that isn’t worrying Da Hong Fei, founder of NEO, the 12th largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $160.852 million.
“There is a bubble in this industry; I’ll say it’s okay,” Hong Fei told CNBC. “Every technology that is so disruptive, there definitely will be bubbles.” He said there were bubbles for trains and automobiles at one time.
He said blockchain technology is in the later stage of a bubble, but even if the bubble bursts, the cryptocurrency will recover and even become bigger. Bitcoin’s price surge has been good for NEO, Hong Fei said. NEO rose 13.28% to $41.15 in the last 24-hour period, according to coinmarketcap.com. Hong Fei said blockchain is about transparency and growth will be global.
“We are moving outside of China to the global market,” he said.
Surviving China’s ICO Ban
NEO, sometimes called the Ethereum of China, was rading near its pre-announcement levels well above $30 following China’s recent ICO ban. The coin has since been volatile, but has sustained its gains since the ICO ban.
NEO reached $49.33 in August, giving it a market capitalization of more than $2.4 billion and making it the sixth largest cryptocurrency at the time.
NEO’s goal of facilitating the “smart economy” requires becoming the first and best smart contract platform, Hong Fei said.
“The key difference (with Ethereum) is we would like to be compliance ready,” he said.
Outlook Promising
In September, Hong Fei speculated there would be a future collaboration between NEO and the Chinese government.
NEO’s rise has been viewed as a reflection of China’s importance to the cryptocurrency market.
The cryptocurrency has advantages over Ethereum like advanced languages and the NEO Contract, which supports multiple programming languages. In other words, NEO’s barriers to entry are much smaller for new developers while still supporting the core elements of decentralized transaction and identification.
According to some analysts, the cryptocurrency’s biggest advantage lies in its application to the real world. By incorporating digital assets and smart contracts, NEO can potentially integrate into the real economy.