NEO is a next generation smart economy platform (formerly Antshares) and China's first open source blockchain that was founded in 2014, is often known as the “Ethereum of China”. What is NEO? NEO uses a smart economy approach to implement its distributed network concept. Its main objective is to digitize assets using the decentralized network of blockchain technology and digital identity. Neo’s main aim is to be the distributed network for “smart economy”. As their website states: 'Digital Assets + Digital Identity + Smart Contract = Smart Economy.' Neo was developed by Shanghai-based blockchain R&D company “OnChain” and funded by two crowdsales: first crowdsale on October 2015 sold 17.5 million NEO tokens for $550,000 and the second crowdsale sold the remaining 22.5 million NEO tokens for $4.5 million. So why NEO? Asset digitization and identity on the NEO platform essentially creates a novel way for asset registration, issuance, and circulation. This means that tangible assets like real estate, company shares or even fiat money can be digitized and traded on the NEO network, thus giving rise to a whole new economy. Its digital identity system allows for integration between the platform and the real world economy. It has custom digital identity standards that enable the creation of electronic identity data for individuals, organizations and even entities. These electronic systems use multi-layered authentication models that include facial and voice recognition as well as fingerprints. All digital assets on the platform enjoy legal protection thanks to the use of digital certificates on its public blockchain. This, in turn, guarantees trust as the system offers an indelible and unalterable record of all entities’ holdings.
GameCoin (GMC) is a digital currency targeted towards the gaming community. GMC tokens go on sale at the end of September through the GameCoin ICO. GameCoin aims to increase the revenue of the gaming industry by 3 times – or 300 billion dollars per year. It aims to allow players to earn money from their hobby. And, within a year, the developers claim the capitalization of GameCoin will “exceed and billion dollars and will continue to grow rapidly.” GameCoin is being proposed as a way to monetize the world of free gaming. The GameCoin whitepaper explains that the majority of gaming revenue comes from 10% of users. Today, developers are struggling to monetize the remaining 90% of users. GameCoin claims to have found a way to do that using blockchain technology. Basically, GameCoin’s idea is to allow each game developer to create their own cryptocurrency. This cryptocurrency is used as in-game money. The developers can create this cryptocurrency at virtually no cost to themselves – it’s just a digital token that has value in the game. However, by the time it circulates through gamers, the token will have value because it can be used to pay for in-game items. In more straightforward terms, GameCoin plans to make it easy for developers to create a secure in-game currency. It appears that these cryptocurrencies will operate as forks on the GameCoin blockchain. Each developer will be able to make their own fork – so gamers can easily apply their GWC tokens to any game of their choice (the GameCoin wallet will support all forks).