NEX ICO Overview
Cryptocurrency trading infrastructure is at a crucial crossroads in its development. Trading primarily occurs on centralized exchanges where user funds are exposed to the risk of hacking and lack of access to liquidity. Exchanging fiat for digital currency itself remains a barrier to wider adoption that is yet to be addressed on a broad level.
These issues are both major barriers to the growth of cryptocurrency as an asset. Within the crypto space, the benefits offered by decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are beginning to catch on. DEXs allow users to retain control of their funds, as trades are mediated by smart contracts on a blockchain; but on-chain computation is generally too slow to keep up with high volume order books.
As for the development of NEO itself as an emerging smart contract platform- the infrastructure needed to reach the scale envisioned by the project founders is still in its infancy. Enter the NEX ICO. (Update – news on token sale is coming on Feb 25th.)
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neonexchange
Neon Exchange (NEX) is a decentralized platform on the NEO blockchain that applies a publicly verifiable offchain matching engine to handle trading volume and support complex orders (such as limit orders) that are not possible on existing DEXs. NEX will be the first exchange to utilize NEO, NEO Gas and its own NEX token as base pairs to trade NEP-5 tokens.
Designed to harness the combined benefits of both on/offchain solutions, NEX will receive orders from an offline wallet, match bids offchain and fulfil orders onchain. In addition to the exchange platform, NEX also introduces a payment service and funds management layer that enables third party smart contracts on NEO to send and receive assets.
Yet another feature of NEX will be the new, user-friendly smart wallet Chrome extension to store currencies off of the exchange while simultaneously allowing for instant trading. Co-founder Fabio Canesin described the wallet extension as a “MetaMask + NEON Wallet” application allowing users to access exchanges while safely maintaining custody of tokens.
Underlying the Neon Exchange is the NEX token. 50 million tokens will be issued that give holders a share of the profits generated by the payment service and exchange features of NEX. In this way, token holders who stake NEX benefit directly from the success of the exchange services: as more fees are generated, holders will receive larger rewards.
NEX ICO Team
Fabio Canesin is at the helm of the NEX ICO. Fabio is the originator of the City of Zion concept and a Co-founder of the project. He holds an MSc in Computational Mechanics and Variational Multiscale Modelling. He has a breadth of business experience including the Oil and Gas sector. He is also Co-founder and CTO of Lemonaid Learning Analytics, a tech startup in Brazil.
Fabian Wahle, Co-founder and Developer of NEX holds a PhD in Machine Learning and AI from ETH Zurich. Fabian is a co-founder and CTO of Augmented Reality med-tech company Altoida and also a Co-founding member of City of Zion.
Ethan Fast, Co-founder and Developer , holds a PhD in HCI and AI from Stanford. Ethan is the founder of a Y Combinator backed startup, Proxino, in addition to being a Co-founding member of the City of Zion and a creator of Neon Wallet.
Advising the team are NEO Council founders Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang. The blessing and oversight of two NEO founders in the NEX ICO lends a large degree of credibility to the project and includes the backing of the project by Onchain.
NEX ICO Strengths and Opportunities
The proposed improvements NEX brings to the NEO ecosystem are wide in scope. The NEX wallet extension is planned for release before the ICO, which will provide a much anticipated alternative to the Neon Wallet.
One key advantage to the wallet extension is that NEX users will not have to worry about transferring their NEP-5 tokens on and off of the platform. In Q1 2018 as well, a native ICO platform for NEP-5 tokens is planned for launch, allowing for a more streamlined ICO process that initially got off to a rocky start. Further down the line on the roadmap, NEX will implement its decentralized banking platform, allowing users to use fiat to directly purchase NEP-5 tokens.
The roadmap is truly comprehensive, in that every crucial piece of the NEX ecosystem is included in the vision. Purchasing NEP-5 tokens with fiat, storing them safely and trading on a decentralized platform are all elements that comprise the vision of the NEX ICO project. This is by all means no easy feat to achieve, but the team behind the project have an exceptional track record and are capable of making the vision a reality.
The successful deployment of the NEX project will place NEO in a truly unique position within the crypto space as the first protocol to operate an entirely complete ecosystem.
NEX ICO Weaknesses and Threats
The crypto space is due for an number of decentralized exchanges in 2018, and NEX will have to contend with the competition. The NEO/NEO Gas/NEX based trading pair exclusivity is of particular note here when it comes to predictions on how the exchange will fare. ETH based trading pairs will not be available until Q4 2018 and BTC is as of yet unannounced.
On the one hand, the limitation to NEP-5 tokens may seem in some ways problematic; however, narrowing the focus of the exchange may indeed have the opposite effect of attracting a much larger user base because NEX will support the most integrated and comprehensive infrastructure for traders of NEP-5 tokens. In this sense, the strategy of launching the exchange to capture a particular niche of the market may well play out more toward the success of NEX in the long run.
By the time integration with ERC20 tokens comes around, having an established niche in the DEX playing field could well work toward the favor of NEX but remains a large uncertainty at this point.
There is a noticeable lack of hype around the NEX ICO for the fact that it is such an integral part of the NEO Smart Economy. It is arguable that the gravity of NEX at the center of the entire ecosystem will lock in users almost by default.
We believe the project and the NEO Smart Economy as a whole would stand to greatly benefit from a much more audacious approach toward community building.
It is unusual with an ICO planned for Q1 2018 that there is not even a Telegram chat to build a core community of supporters. We hope to see this change as the details around the actual ICO become more clear.
The Verdict on NEX ICO
The NEX ICO signifies a massive step forward in the development of the NEO Smart Economy. The introduction of NEO based trading pairs, improved wallet function, ICO launch platform and decentralized banking all represent a significant milestone in the development of the crypto space as a whole.
We will be placing a large bet on the NEX ICO