NEO versus Ethereum: Why NEO might be 2018’s strongest cryptocurrency

A smart economy will feature digitized physical assets that will have proof of ownership in the blockchain. These assets can be sold, traded, and leveraged through smart contracts, and their ownership can be protected and validated through the decentralised model of the blockchain.

The biggest difference between Neo and Ethereum is Neo’s focus on a smart economy. For a platform to service the smart economy, it needs to put specific thought into how it will accommodate governmental regulation. While Ethereum offers similar blockchain capabilities, NEO is developing for this purpose.

Digital identity — a verifiable identity in digital form — is a necessary evil. For companies and governments to operate on the blockchain, digitising their assets and issuing smart contracts, the platform must be regulatory compliant. 

• NEO plans to issue digital identities per the internationally agreed-upon standard and then secure them using the blockchain. NEO is working with THEKEY - a project being developed on NEO's platform to help with digital identification.
• Ethereum requires other DApps to develop digital identification and secure it on their blockchain.

A smart economy based on smart contracts means that you need to be able to leverage and exchange assets beyond currency. We need to be able to digitize assets like house, property, and car ownership, gold, diamonds, and other precious elements. 

• Ethereum can secure digital assets, but they won’t necessarily be regulatory compliant.
• NEO is ensuring that the digital asset certificates will be compliant.

NEO’s platform is complex and has multiple interconnected pieces. 

OnChain is not the same company as NEO, but they have a partnership and their interests align. OnCHain's system is known as DNA (Decentralised Network Architecture) and aims to work with Chinese businesses and government. NEO is the foundation of DNA.

DNA develops public and private blockchains for businesses that are then linked up to NEO to join the decentralised economy. NEO essentially provides the public blockchains and OnChain's DNA the private blockchains.

Neox is Neo’s version of atomic swaps (directly swapping tokens without any exchange) and cross-chain integration.

It allows people to swap Crypto assets and transact across different blockchains. It also allows smart contracts to interact across chains.

City of Zion is an independent, open-source community of developers, translators, and designers who work towards the betterment of Neo. They have developed the NEON wallet, created a NEO block scanner, translated documents for NEO, and developed the NEX platform.

Nex offers a platform for the creation of payment solutions and decentralised exchanges on NEO. It links to NEO with NEOX.

• Protocol: Ethereum uses a Proof of Work (POW) protocol and will change into Proof of Stake. NEO uses a Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT) protocol - a modification of the standard Proof of Stake.
• Transaction speed: Ethereum can transact a maximum of 30tps, while Neo can transact a maximum of 10,000tps.
• Forking and scaling: Ethereum can fork. NEO can't.
• Decoupling of GAS and NEO: Ethereum has one token: ether. NEO has two: NEO and GAS.
• Smart contract language: Ethereum has one coding language: Solidity. NEO has many.
• Smart contract execution: NEO is more efficient and smarter.

NEO has two possible paths towards success: 

• NEO can compete with Ethereum directly and it begins to be the go-to platform for ICOs and blockchain development. This is less likely. However, NEO has more room to grow.
• It doesn’t compete with Ethereum but instead becomes the DApp platform and foundation of a smart economy in the East. China is the leading investor in renewable energy. If they have their plan, they will likely become the world’s leading country in blockchain development.