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.
Harmony’s open, decentralized network is enabled through the use of the native protocol token - Harmony ONE. The token incentivizes and rewards a variety of participants including developers, validators/stakers, investors, and community members who develop, secure and govern the network. In order to use the network, users pay a small transaction fee denominated in the native Harmony token. Harmony’s scalable, high-throughput protocol is powered by a native token which is used for various forms of payment and participation in the protocol (staking, transaction fees, voting & governance). Harmony uses blockchain to align incentives of different stakeholders, developers and businesses while allowing them to build open marketplaces of fungible and non-fungible tokens and assets. Furthermore, the upcoming application of zero-knowledge proofs will allow Harmony to become a data sharing platform that can overcome the conflicting problem plaguing many information and data markets: that individual market participants’ have mutual distrust to share data but strong desire to acquire data themselves. The Harmony token will function in the following aspects of the protocol: The token is used for staking, which is necessary to participate in the POS consensus & earn block rewards and transaction fees. The token is used to pay for transaction fees, gas and storage fees. The token is used in voting for on-chain governance of the protocol.