NEO AS A BAD INVESTMENT, DUE TO THE CURRENT CHINA ICO BAN. (TRUE/FALSE)
By: Ekene Obi
Tags: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Bitcoincash, Neo, Investment

In this piece , I will assume that NEO is bad investment and investors shouldn’t consider it as a reliable investment due to the present ICO ban in China. Last time China banned the crypto exchanges it took 4 months before the bans were lifted ,will it be same this time? How does this affect NEO? Is the tag “Ethereum of China” affecting the NEO price? Da Hongfei , founder of ONCHAIN and creator of NEO, formerly Antshares has clarified numerously why Ethereum of china doesn’t fit as tag for NEO, he claims NEO is a smart Economy and has digital identity ,amongst other features that vividly distinguishes NEO from Ethereum ,also NEO is a global platform not just for China , but should I believe him? Most investors bought because of the comparison with Ethereum and wish the price will appreciate as more ICOs are added onto the platform, but now that ICOs are banned in china , could this be a bad deal?

I am just a regular investor and crpto enthusiast, I will love to know my actual position say in the next 3months because time run faster in digital assets trading sphere. I will try to separate the facts from assumptions or rumors.

Neo , which is a rebrand of Antshares, gives a global appeal and it officially launched as a blockchain platform for smart economy to the world, founded by Da Hongfei and Erik ZHang, whom are also the founders of onchain which is a private firm for blockchain solutions in china.NEO is a project of onchain, though these are two different entities, but they are more integrated. Onchain has a core called DNA , Digital Network Architecture , and NEO is an integral part of it.The DNA encompasses the whole blueprint of onchain projects ,and how shows how much NEO means to Onchain since they are interwoven together. Onchain has working projects with the Chinese local Government Guizhou;Onchain is working with Guizhou Far East Integrity Management company, to provide digital identity solutions through blockchain for the Guizhou locals in China , the Chinese govt. and Alibaba; onchain partnered with Ali cloud to provide emails that are signed digitally on the blockchain. Onchain is helping chinese busineses and parastatals adopt the blockchain technology, reason why the connection with the Chinese govt. is so rigid and why plenty feel NEO would finally be the official platform to launch any smart contracts in china, even though the founders have repeatedly debunked the idea, but there is little to no other platform that has launched mainnet for smart contracts in china, and NEO being the first blockchain platform in China and already working with parastatals and businesses in China is the perfect candidate.Onchain and NEO understand the blockchain technology , the government needs help to understand the technology and how best to utilize it , with the laid down partnerships and connections which Onchain has and being the creators of NEO, this will be a very good niche for NEO to leverage on. I don’t expect the founders to accept that they have govt. backing , it’s very unlikely , they will be shooting themselves in the foot if they did. I have pieced the puzzles together and confirm that NEO has a better chance to be the major platform to help businesses launch their blockchain and smart contracts in China.

On How optimist is the Chinese government towards Blockchain? if the government support of indigenous companies like Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, JD.COM etc is not prove enough that the government is more innovative than it is credited, though most of these companies have similar offshore counterparts , and the user bases are centered mostly in China they are worth more in valuation than their offshore counterparts, mostly because of the market size in China and the affinity of technology and innovative products. Just last year they proposed the 13th FIVE YEAR PLAN, and Blockchain is part of the plan, so just this alone is a proof than the government is ready to adopt blockchain and make it go mainstream.They understand the power of blockchain and they are ready to herness its full potential , but just in the right way.The ban of ICOs like the representative of government and da hongfei said was a necessary move by the government to protect its citizens from mass ponzi schemes in ICOs and provide a laid down rule they have to follow.With a population of over 2billion citizens it is important to control the virality of ICOs, and make sure it is organic for the community.

As explained by Jihan and Charlie lee, the bitcoin exchanges have no licenses for exchange , that they have been in business this long without license or major suspension or ban means the government means well for blockchain , we might see a license or regulation soon , the last time it took four months was because of the auditing of exchanges account to track down outflow of money.I bet this will take less.

There was a list in circulation in the media after the ICO ban , it had official government stamps, it was a list of suspected fraudulent ICOs or ICOs that were banned ,BNB was listed but NEO or onchain was never in the list , even though NEO has an open offer for any investor that wants to return NEO for BTC. In essence NEO is fullycompliant with regulation , which shows a good gestures being a law abiding company like the rest of china indigenous companies like ALIBABA, JD ,TENCENT etc which are still internationally respected, note that these Chinese indigenous companies are among the top 10 in market capitalization in the world. This might be NEO fate soon.The ban news from China has played a major role in plummeting the price of NEO to $13 that is 76% lost from its all time high of $56 .The news affects NEO in particular because not running an ICO makes NEO worthless, though this view is shallow and speaks less of NEO as a smart economy and the ingenuity of the NEO as a smart economy initiative.

Da Hongfei , when asked if he thinks the ICO ban is temporary, he responded with a resounding “NO”, in the two interviews I watched he was asked this same question and he said NO the ICO ban isn’t temporary.Now ask yourself why didn’t he just say yes to make the price of NEO go up a little and please his investors , and my answer is , in the interview he subtly described what is going on. He said smart contracts can still run on NEO , but you can not do crowd funding in China, he said smart contracts initiators can raise money from nothing more than 200 individual investors in China, and can crowd fund outside of China. He also reiterated in this interviews that NEO is in compliance with regulation and has always been , and he dropped another hint that NEO has been in contact with government officials and regulators are in love NEO .The interviews are referenced for you watch .Also on reddit he said “How to regulate ICO is a hot topic in the Chinese blockchain industry and community. The head of Digital Currency Institute at PBOC (central bank) recently published an article on ICO regulations. He said the regulating authority should rather be the gatekeeper than scavenger. Pre-screening or licensing may huddle innovation, so the regulators should pay close attention to those ICOs but only step in when needed. We think this standpoint is well balanced between flexibility and legitimacy. If any ICO project looks like a Ponzi scheme or scam, we will warn the public and regulators may step in”,this statement was before the official ban .

My conclusion , after taking this from a negative point of view, is that NEO is a positive investment, the masterplan of NEO and Onchain are interwoven together, and they both have been in compliance with regulation from start, that China is still finding ways to regulated capital outflow , and the imminent China leadership change meant to happen on 18th of Oct,and different factions in government proposing different policies to regulate digital assets , might seem detrimental to the survival of NEO , though it is a good thing, in that China’s proposal of the five year master plan which has blockchain adoption as major milestone won’t let such an innovative idea like the blockchain die. My Take is that NEO is presently undervalued and should be worth 10X in the next three months.