NEO

The Neo blockchain has two native tokens for its ecosystem: GAS and NEO. The GAS token is used to represent the right to use the Neo blockchain, and its NEO token represents the right to manage the blockchain.

NEO token holders can participate in both on-chain and off-chain governance structures. For on-chain governance, holders can use their NEO to vote on network protocol upgrades and receive GAS as an incentive for participating. Off-chain governance decisions can be voiced to the Neo Council. The council is responsible for making strategic and technical decisions and for implementing changes.

As outlined in the project’s white paper, the total supply of NEO was minted at the first block and capped at 100 million. Neo held an initial coin offering (ICO) throughout August 2017, raising over $28 million for the project and distributing 50 million tokens to ICO participants. The remaining 50 million tokens were held by the Neo Council for the long-term support of Neo projects.

Of the 50 million NEO retained by the Neo Council, the team guaranteed that the council wouldn’t use more than 15 million tokens per year and that tokens would be distributed as follows:

• 10 million NEO are used as an incentive for Neo developers and the Neo Council;
• 10 million NEO are used as an incentive for developers working within the Neo ecosystem;
• 15 million NEO are used for investing in other Neo Council blockchain projects;
• 15 million retained as a contingency.

The NEO token reached its all-time high of $196.85 in January 2018 following the platform’s rebranding from Antshares and release of the Neo NEP-5 token standard. The project’s token dipped to an all-time low of $0.07229 in October 2016 just after the launch of the Antshares mainnet.

Like the prices of many other cryptocurrencies, NEO’s price stagnated for most of 2018. Then, it failed to rise above $25 in 2019 and 2020. But during the crypto bull run in May 2021, NEO’s price surged to $140, which was the highest price in more than three years.