eToro has written a market analysis of Blockchain company NEO.
The analysis says that "NEO is experiencing a surge in the number of dApps developed for the platform that could bring the possibilities of the network closer to or even surpass Ethereum."
Background
NEO is a company from China which offers a platform for users to create smart contracts and decentralised applications, in the same way as Ethereum. It differs from Ethereum in a number of ways - for example, its blockchain is validated with a different system ('delegated Byzantine fault tolerance'), and it supports many programming languages, while Ethereum supports only one.
Another key difference is that it is far more centralised, with all of its nodes currently owned by the NEO Foundation. In the future, it will extend ownership, but it will only allow nodes which are correctly identified and legally liable because NEO intends to integrate itself within established regulatory systems. This marks it apart from many other blockchain companies which want to provide an alternative system entirely.
eToro analysis
According to the analysis, NEO is attracting more and more decentralised applications. It lists some of them - Bluzelle, which rents computer storage space, Zilliqa, which is a blockchain which uses sharding to be fast, and Switcheo, a decentralised exchange which according to coinmarketcap.com handles daily volumes of $1.2 million.
However, the analysis states that only 32 smart contracts have been deployed on the NEO platform, most of which are inactive. On the other hand, some successful Ethereum dApps are apparently being supported by the NEO Global Capital fund, and could also integrate with NEO in the future.
NEO has a market cap of just over 5 billion USD according to Coinmarketcap.com, which is a drastic fall from its high of 9.3 billion on the 27th of February.
The analysis states that NEO has less of a correlation to Bitcoin than other Cryptocurrencies , but has a clear link with Ethereum "which makes sense considering they are offering two quite similar products and are competing for the same sector within the cryptomarket."
The following graphic displays the price journey of NEO from February 2017 to April 2018. It displays the drastic price changes typical to the cryptocurrency market, especially last year.
eToro
The graphic below displays the price of NEO since December 2017. The report makes the point that the bear market is characterised by slower movement than the bull market, although the drop is still much faster than is typical with other assets.
eToro
The analysis ends with the point that the market will follow Bitcoin's lead and hopes that it will go up in price, and "any fundamental developments on the space (whether positive or negative) could drive the trend of the following month."
