Last week, I published an article (https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@coolhandcanuck/current-coins-i-am-watching-for-week-of-august-7-2017) calling for Ethereum to rise to $300 US and listing NEO as a buy at $7.30 US per coin. NEO made me nervous because of the thousands of percent that it has already gained since last year. While the re branding of the name to NEO undoubtedly pleased some fans of the matrix, that was not enough to sell me on the coin.
The main reason for the buy on NEO was the upcoming launch of its 2.0 version as well as certain partnerships that it had solidified and rumors of partnership with the Chinese government. The coin jumped 100% to $14 US per coin quite quickly, and is now perched at over $19 per coin (on a path towards what might be a rapid 200% gain). NEO is flirting with a one billion dollar market cap and is now the tenth largest crypto-currency by market cap.
First off, as real estate agents like to say, "location, location, location". NEO is centred in China and it has positioned itself as extremely China-centric, from its marketing focus, projects, language and exchanges. While that is reportedly changing to some extent to provide an increased focus on the West, NEO has done a good job of building a solid base. They have certain ins with the Chinese government, ins with monster online merchandiser Alibaba, and ins with very important Chinese players. This is important since the Chinese economy is now the world's largest economy with a GDP of $10.4 trillion U.S. and a very Blockchain friendly government that is even now moving to collect taxes via Blockchain,
see for example the following article: (https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/china-to-use-the-blockchain-to-send-invoices-and-collect-taxes/).
While Ethereum requires developers to use a programming language called solidity (which has faced recent and significant problems with hacking), NEO allows developers to choose from a wide range of programs including well know ones such as JAVA, C/C# and GO. The fact that developers don't have to learn a new language to use it is attractive.
NEO also upgraded its software itself to allow for a considerable number of new features including cross-chain protocol, quantum-resistant cryptography, a distributed storage protocol and a secure communication protocol. Upgrades to the website, apps and marketing are also new important features for the project.
More impressive are the partnerships that were announced by NEO, including Bancor, Coindash and Agrello. Two other lesser known new partners are "Red Pulse" and "Elastos".
Red Pulse describes itself as an event-driven market research company. What it aims to do is to build a research sharing platform built on the NEO 2.0 smart contract platform. It will allow readers to guide market research and to use digital currency to reward analysts and contributors directly. Red Pulse will use a new token, $RPX, powered by the NEO platform.
Elastos involves the very powerful bitcoin mining giant Jihan Wu and aims to become an operating system for the blockchain.
Further, NEO will have something called the "Nest Fun" (nestfund.io), which will be an investment fund that seeks to rival to the DAO (which is ethereum based).
NEO appears to be gaining considerable momentum. I plan to hodl my NEO coins for the forseeable future.