On September 28th, Neo co-founders Da Hongfei & Erik Zhang had a Reddit AMA about Neo N3. Our engaged Neo community jumped in with hundreds of questions and comments. Discussion highlights are as follows:
Question 1
The substance is there, but the marketing is not. What plans have you to actively market N3 so that it can become a top blockchain once again? Top by 2020 has been missed, how to rectify?
Answer 1
Da: The community has asked many good questions about marketing and adoption in this AMA. So let me give you a general answer here.
First and most importantly: We want the community to know that we heard you when you say you want more marketing from Neo. We realize that we haven’t been as loud as some of our competitors. In many areas, this has been deliberate during the journey to N3. At the same time, we are working hard to improve in other areas, and you will see the outcomes of this work in the coming weeks and months.
Our process to build and prepare N3 for launch took longer than we expected or wanted. During this time, we did not push to onboard new developers onto Neo Legacy. The market for developers is already competitive. Asking them to learn something they may need to unlearn or build something they may need to rebuild did not seem right. We felt that this wait during the journey was the best decision for our current and future community members. But this did slow the growth of some key programs, such as Neo EcoBoost, which couldn’t be as aggressive as we wanted.
We understand that this time has been frustrating to our Neo community and ecosystem. We wanted to do more too. And on reflection, had we known how long N3 would take to complete, we may have done some things differently.
But even though we weren’t loud, we were busy. We directed efforts toward foundational initiatives to provide a platform to build on in the future. One example is the founding of the InterWork Alliance alongside fellow sponsors Microsoft, Accenture, Digital Asset, and SDX. Neo wasn’t positioned to onboard a new army of developers when we initiated the alliance, so we set out to define industry-level standards that N3 can use going forward. There are some projects out there right now that look successful, but will face huge challenges in the future because they have adopted frameworks and taxonomies that will not be adopted by the industry at scale. With N3, we’re playing a long game.
Looking ahead, we are focused on getting the Neo N3 ecosystem up and running: Complete migration, achieve wide exchange support, attract small- to medium-size dApps to build out the ecosystem and provide references for larger projects, and bring up documentation and tutorials to a first-class standard. Much as we’d like to place the Neo logo on the side of a stadium next week, we have further foundational goals to achieve to prepare to market at that scale.
As to attracting new developers: NGD has built several soon-to-be-launched new and revamped grant tracks to encourage promising developers to get involved with Neo. Tracks include a general grants program for tools and infrastructure, a research grants program for applied research, and an updated core developer grants program. There is also a new DAO in development (codename “GrantShares”) to help sponsored communities and NEO holders collaborate to fund ecosystem initiatives without having to go through NGD or NF. All this is in addition to the EcoBoost, EcoFund, and Early Adoption programs that are all open now. You can find more information soon at https://neo.org/eco.
As to marketing resources: We’ve also initiated a new team dedicated to improving Neo’s overall product experience. Team leaders include a former senior marketing manager from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and one of founders of the original O3 Labs that was bought out by Bitcoin.com. This team is working alongside NGD at the intersection of what Neo can do as a technology and how people think and feel about it. Their mantra is, “Developers made Neo easy to use. We will make it easy to choose.” This PXT initiative is new and the team is still growing, but you may have already noticed subtle improvements in Neo’s brand identity. We look for the initiative to yield growing results in the coming months.
Finally, I want to call out that even in these early days of N3, developer reviews have been fantastic. We know we have much more to do to get loud now that N3 is here. But there is no substitute for a satisfied user turned evangelist, and their ranks are growing. We are confident that as more and more developers see what N3 can do and use the fantastic tools built by NGD Enterprise, COZ, NEXT, NeoSPCC, Neow3j, and others, the developer world (not just blockchain) will take notice.
Question 2
Thank you to you both for all the hard work.
Uncle Da, not long ago I was speculative in that I thought China would be a big backer of Neo in order to promote the use of their e-CNY globally. Put some yield on it and attract users around the world to use their currency through DeFi but this seems less likely now after news has come out that China is pushing for tokenless blockchains and being more strict in general.Is the China market still a focus for NEO token holders or are we shifting towards a more global focus?
As to Erik, I am personally excited about your new project Galaxz and the future real economy that NFT’s can bring to video games. Are you planning to work on any other projects or games in the future?
Answer 2
Da: Neo has a large global community. We will have various campaign strategies across different regions, in order to represent the best interest of different communities while adhering to local policies and regulations.
Regarding the new policy of China, we will follow them in Chinese areas. Neo is one of the oldest platforms in the blockchain industry and has solved lots of challenges. I think not only China, but most countries will launch new policies and regulations regarding blockchain, and we have strong confidence that Neo can follow them.
Erik: I will mainly focus on Neo and Galaxz in the next 5 years.
Question 3
Many congratulations on Neoverse, it definitely felt like it went off very well & successfully. Also, I loved the way you did it using top grade artists!
My questions are:
1)What are the “VIP privileges” within the Neo Ecosystem that come with holding the NFTs?
2)The “N” series was so beautiful I would LOVE to frame them on my wall (as i’m sure many others will). Is it possible to get the original JPG files?
3)Can we expect more trending campaigns or teasers from the Neo team in the near future?
Thank you & all the best.
Answer 3
Da: 1. The VIP rights will come from use cases on N3. More details will be announced while we move forward with the N3 migration. Examples may include exclusive mining pools, fee reductions, privilege for on-chain whitelists, etc. (nothing is finalized though, just some personal suggestions).
2. For every NFT, you can download the original file by clicking the download link when you view your Neoverse NFT on the official website: neoverse.neo.org
Question 4
What’s Next after N3? What are your plans for N3 improvements? Will there be a N4 in the future? When will stablecoins like USDT ,USDC ,PAX be deployed on the N3 network?
Answer 4
Da: There are several next steps for N3. We want to get all the foundational pieces of the ecosystem up and running and then focus on bringing new developers and dApps to the platform.
A good stablecoin is really important for the Neo ecosystem. The good news is that the DeFi winner in the Neo Frontier Launchpad was a stablecoin project named Lyrebird. The NGD group is keeping in touch with the team and has offered to help them.
We would also love to see stablecoins such as USDT, USDC, or PAX on Neo. We’ll actively bring them onto Neo.
Question 5
Hello Da:
1)I remember a few years back you had the ambitious goal of 100,000 tps under n3 without sharding, where do we stand now regarding the tps and do you still think 100,000 is possible to reach with n3?
2)What blockchain do you see as Neo’s biggest competitor at the moment and why?
Answer 5
Da: In a lab environment, a single Neo N3 node can now provide about 30k TPS using the NeoGo implementation, and 8.8k is no longer a big problem in a networked scenario. While these raw numbers are measured in a somewhat sterile environment, they are still important to understand where the limits are and what can be expected of a real network. The Neo N3 protocol has a lot of potential and we’re ready to deliver this potential to our users. I’m confident N3 will have sufficient throughput capacity to compete with other leading blockchains at the Layer 1 level.
Meanwhile, we’ll work out one or several layer2/sidechain solutions before we hit the Layer 1 bottleneck. It is still too early to say which technical approach will win out in the end, be it rollup, sharding, sidechain, or state channels. We are keeping a close eye on new developments in the layer2/sidechain sector.
Question 6
Hello and it’s been awhile. What do you feel is the biggest obstacle or obstacles N3 and all other blockchains will face before moving away from this giant speculative asset class and into the actual uses in day to day business?
Answer 6
It is very important for the blockchain industry to adhere to the local regulations and policies all around the world. That is an unavoidable stepping stone to day-to-day business. NGD Enterprise is a sponsor member of the IWA. Together with other members such as Microsoft, Accenture, IBM, Nasdaq, and UBS, Neo is contributing to the frameworks needed for businesses to create standardized token definitions and contracts in non-technical, business terms, and then turn them over to developers for coding on any platform of choice.
Question 7
What makes Neo unique as a crypto project? And what is Neo’s vision moving forward (short and long term)?
Answer 7
There are many things. It pioneered the dBFT consensus mechanism. It was the first chain to use a dual token model. It has native support for decentralized storage and oracles. It was the first chain to use a dual token model. It is still the only project to return all raised funds to its token sale participants. Our philosophy of “pragmatic idealism” has helped the project solve many challenges. Neo is a project that has always forged its own path.
Short term Neo’s vision is to bring more developers to the ecosystem. Long term it is to become the platform for the Smart Economy.
Question 8
I want to ask your opinion, is Neo N3 infrastructure ready for mass adoption？What do you think Neo ecosystem lacks for now?
Answer 8
Enter N3, the most significant upgrade to the Neo blockchain to date. At the protocol level, all users and applications will naturally benefit from its vastly improved architecture — better performance, simplicity and ease-of-use, improved economics, and the introduction of on-chain governance to ensure the platform’s longevity in a decentralized manner.
Despite the lofty achievements of Neo’s core developers in optimizing its base layer, the real beauty of N3 lies in its diverse set of essential components for applications. Decentralized storage, identity tools, data oracles, interoperability, and domain name service; all integrated for a seamless UX/DX that will stand the test of time.
As blockchain-based applications become increasingly sophisticated, the need for these critical functions will only continue to increase. With its out-of-the-box functionality, available to all developers regardless of their language preferences, Neo provides value to developers that simply cannot be matched by other platforms today. Yet at the same time, Neo developers are never boxed in, always able to choose the right tools for their needs.
Neo N3 is a wakeup call to blockchain developers who demand a better platform for their applications. But perhaps most importantly, it substantially lowers the barrier to entry for blockchain development.
Rather than simply compete over existing developers in a niche industry, it opens the floodgates to the millions of traditional developers who are ready to take their first step into this brave new world. And once you’ve tried Neo, you’ll never settle for less.
