Some of our posts may have affiliate links including this one. That means if you make a purchase I may get a commission (at no extra cost for you). To find out more about it read our Disclosure page

Neo vs EOS. Which is the most promising blockchain and which of NEO or EOs should you invest in?

In this guide, we will make a detailed comparison of Neo with EOS. So that you can easily understand their similarities, their differences and the value they each provide.

So that you can make up your mind more easily about which of EOS vs NEO is the best cryptocurrency to invest in?

Ever since the launch of the blockchain through Bitcoin more of the world’s best and brightest have turned their focus to this highly promising industry.

Blockchain 2.0 was born out of the emergence of Ethereum. A new era of smart contracts, decentralised applications, and a tokenized future was here.

It was an incredible leap forward. And ever since the launch of Ethereum new Ethereum killers and blockchain platforms have been launched.

Two of the most talked-about projects are Neo and EOS. Neo the Chinese Ethereum came onto the scene during the early days of 2017 under the name of Antshares and they kinda took the crypto and blockchain world by storm.

Neo is an open-source, community driven platform that is leveraging the intrinsic advantages of blockchain technology to realize the optimized digital world of the future.

It was then speculators, investors, techies and business entrepreneurs were realising two main things:

1. The future of this industry will very much be in the hands of these new blockchain platforms
2. And there is a lot of speculative interest and money pouring into the next Ethereum

EOS was similarly launched with a lot of hype and interest. This interest in EOS was highly amplified by the people behind it.

EOSIO is a next-generation, open-source blockchain protocol with industry-leading transaction speed and flexible utility. Introduced in May 2017, it has since been widely recognized as the first performant blockchain platform for businesses across the world.

Dan Larimer is the co-founder of EOS together with Brendan Blumer.

A well-known and famous figure in this industry. Who previously also founded Bitshares, another cryptocurrency platform and a co-founded to Steem, which is a social blockchain with community-driven decentralised projects like Steemit.

An online site is a blockchain-based blogging and social media website with its own reward system for publishers and content writers.

A comparison of Neo and EOS

We will in this article explore the ins and outs of both blockchains and their respective cryptocurrencies.

EOS or Neo – which of these two blockchains will emerge as the winner? Will both of them be highly successful?

And which of those blockchain’s native cryptocurrencies will be the winner in terms of ROI (return of investment) – both for the short term and long term!

First, let us provide you with a brief introduction to each!

What is Neo – a short introduction

Neo is like Ethereum a blockchain platform or ecosystem. Where new economies, products, and services can be built on it. And at the heart of this lies the smart contract technology.

It is very much the foundation of both Neo, EOS, and Ethereum (and many others).

So imagine a future where new decentralised application and services could live and work on this network through the power of human ingenuity and willing participants and technological automation.

Neo is tailored for the business world, but with vast possibilities. At its core, it’s a blockchain for DeFi (decentralised finance), digital assets, digital identity, games and more.

Wait, what is Neo and what is Onchain? Aren’t they founded by the same people?

Yes, Onchain and Neo are both founded by the same people. Onchain is a B2B blockchain solution. And a privatised company.

Where Neo is funded by the community (and private investors can be part of this of course). And it is more built for B2C and B2B. In the form that businesses can build on Neo to create B2C products and services.

Where Onchain is more of a B2B blockchain solution where businesses can build their own dedicated private blockchain solutions.

What is EOS – a short introduction

EOSIO is built for both the public and private worlds.

EOSIO is an industry-agnostic blockchain that wants to stand out as a user-friendly and modern platform.

EOSIO, EOS is like Ethereum and Neo a blockchain platform where users, businesses, anyone really could start building on. Creating tomorrow’s new decentralised products and services.

As with any blockchain platform/ecosystem, the success is in the hands of the people building on it, and the end-users.

It is clear from reading up on EOSIO that they are targetting a broad spectrum of industries, from healthcare to government, supply chain, finance, and decentralised marketplaces.

The vision and purpose

NEO’s vision:

Neo is an open-source, community driven platform that is leveraging the intrinsic of blockchain technology to realize the optimized digital world of the future. Anyone from anywhere in the world to join Neo’s vision of a smart economy

Smart economy, open-source and community-driven.

EOS’s vision:

Block.one is committed to working with the community to develop a platform that will strengthen and grow the ecosystem. The following are foundational pillars through which we aim to make EOSIO™ the fastest, most scalable, and easiest to use blockchain in the world

Scalability: More apps, more users

Developers: Better tooling, faster app development

Users: Greater security, less friction

Enterprise: Greater flexibility, better compliance

So easy, scalable and fast.

For both of them, I’d say there is work to be done to reach their vision. But as with any company or organisation visions are meant to be ambitious.

The scalability

One of the key concerns for most blockchains is the scalability issue.

Blockchains can easily become bloated with lots of data, and they are just getting bigger and bigger. There is a need to handle volumes of users and traffic and still maintain good on-chain maintenance.

Every blockchain is looking into their own solutions for solving the scalability issues.

From:

• Increased block size
• Shorter block time
• Sharding
• Second-layer protocols, i.e. Lightning Network, Raiden, Trinity etc
• New forms of consensus models, etc

And the list goes on. The issues of scalability are real. And the solutions are not obvious. Or at least not tested and verified with real traffic on the massive volumes that other types of networks are experiencing.

The common reference point for blockchain outputs is often card transactions at networks like VISA and Mastercard.

• Where the current usage per second for VISA is about 1,700 transactions per second (source)

What is NEO’s solution for the scalability issues plaguing blockchains?

This is how NEO (currently) is solving the scalability issues: few nodes, off-chain solution (Trinity), lightweight VM and Dynamic Sharding are existing or in the plan for how Neo can solve scalability.

And what does EOS do to scale its blockchain?

EOS proudly labels itself as one of the fastest blockchains.

And there is a maximum estimated output of about 1,000 – 5,000 TPS. This is highly dependant on the computational power of each node (BP). So it can grow and scale further is expected by EOS.

With near-instant block times, few block producers, and few BPs that actually run full nodes and the computational power of each node are the keys to unlocking the success of EOS scalability success.

EOSIO strategic vision for scaling the EOS blockchain

But the main questions will only get answered when the blockchains are actually put through the tests. As both currently are experiencing much lower output than what they are promising being able to handle.

Consensus models

Both Neo and EOS have a similar consensus model for how their respective blockchains work.

Consensus models mean the way that an agreed state of consensus is agreed upon. And this specifically relates to how transactions are verified, how nodes are used and rewards are shared across participants.

Both EOS and NEO has a form of delegated Proof of Stake model.

Proof of Stake or PoS is one of the main blockchain consensus models. The other one is Proof of Work or PoW. The latter is what Ethereum and Bitcoin are using.

And the former is often used by blockchain 2.0s and 3.0s.

With a Proof of Stake models, you have different full and light-nodes that maintain the network. Validate new transactions, generate new blocks, etc.

Instead of mining new coins as with Bitcoin, new coins or tokens are forged through a minting process done through the staking of existing coins or tokens.

How decentralised is it?

A key question for any blockchain is how decentralised is it really?

As most blockchains are struggling to find a healthy relationship between scalability and decentralisation, or governance and decentralisation.

Often one have to compromise and perhaps sometimes this means that decentralisation is sacrificed for output.

And a blockchain that is not decentralised is not truly a blockchain.

So the question is, how decentralised is EOS and NEO really?

How decentralised is NEO?

A common concern from the blockchain community is how much is Neo currently sacrificing for greater output and easier on-boarding of users?

It is an open-source project. However, the nodes that make NEO tick are all run by the same people or foundations almost entirely.

• You can have a look at the current node setup for NEO here.

There are currently 7 active nodes on the network. With five of those being run by the Neo Foundation.

The others being run by another non-profit foundation called City of Zion. Which is made up of a lot of Neo contributors and developers.

And the last one is KPN a Dutch Telecom company.

So this ultimately means that the NEO network is currently run by almost entirely the same group of people and this obviously is not particularly decentralised.

New businesses and organisations can apply to become a Neo node. So it will be interesting to follow if this is improved in the future. Otherwise, it will be hard to say that Neo really is decentralised.

But the question about if Neo will be and should be decentralised is of utmost importance and something the team has acknowledged. Without more nodes and a greater decentralisation there is no point to NEO (read more here).

And the plan is for NEO to move on to become more decentralised throughout time.

How decentralised is EOS?

EOS nodes network monitor

Ok, so Neo isn’t that decentralised. But is EOS much better?

EOS has for a long time been the focus of decentralisation, or the lack thereof. Similar to NEO.

One of the early adopters and contributors to EOS, namely EOS Tribe has dropped out from EOS and publically lamented it for its lack of progress in making it more decentralised (read more).

On EOS there are 21 nodes that basically run the network. These nodes are chosen by token holders. The main contributors on EOS are known as Block Producers (BP). These BPs are the ones that make the network operate.

The BPs are the ones with the full power and the ones that token holders need to use and trust, in order for them to transact on the EOS blockchain.

And there have been many concerns around the sheer amount of tokens that Block.One owns. The company which has the leaders behind EOS, Dan Larimer and Brendan Blumer work.

And the power and control Block.One has over the EOS network. Since it ultimately can decide whoever they want to be a BP with the number of votes they have in their possession.

EOS has an annual inflation model set to 5%. That means new tokens are yearly added to the economy.

And from this 5%:

• 1% goes directly to BPs
• And the remaining 4% goes to whatever worker proposals that the community votes for.

The 1% that goes to BPs is also split up between the BPs.

• 25% of the BP pay goes to active producers (active on the EOS blockchain)
• and the rest of the 75% goes to standby BPs based on the votes they get (read more).

EOSIO Nodeos the node daemon for EOS blockchain

So in some ways, EOS is less centralised than Neo, but perhaps not the pinnacle of true decentralisation amongst blockchains.

There are valid concerns. Both in terms of the block rewards, and what this will ultimately do for EOS wealth.

And of course, the power that lies in the hand of this company, Block.One and the leaders of EOS blockchain.

• There are more than 21 BP nodes, but only 21 are used at any time. And the active nodes, or BPs can change at any time based on current votes.
• Read more about what the community are discussing re the decentralisation issues of EOS on Reddit

The cryptocurrencies

Neo has two main native cryptocurrencies:

1. The NEO token is the value token of the Neo blockchains. Neo produces Gas by staking it in a stakeable wallet. Neo is used for consensus mechanism, network management, and updates.
2. Gas is used to fuel the ecosystem’s transactions, i.e. network charges.

NEO

GAS

And for EOSIO there is one token, called EOS.

The EOS token model works so that if you own EOS tokens that basically gives you the right to use the network to that same amount in computational power as you own in tokens.

So depending on your usage requirements you can buy the same amount of tokens.

Do you need to use 5% of the resources of the EOS, then you need to hold 5% of the EOS tokens. Basically a way of paying for the infrastructure needs that you have.

EOS

Where can you buy EOS and NEO?

If you are interested in buying either NEO or EOS then you will have a few different options. For example buying them at a crypto exchange, buying with your credit card or debit card, buying via a bank transfer.

If you want to buy with your bank card then these are your best options below.

You can buy EOS and NEO with a credit card or debit card at:

1. Changelly
2. Bitpanda
3. Coinbase (only EOS)

If you want to buy with a bank transfer then these are some of the options available for EOS:

1. Kraken (for EOS)
2. Coinbase (for EOS)

If you want to buy NEO with a bank transfer then you need to first buy BTC or ETH with a bank transfer and then send those BTC/ETH to another cryptocurrency exchange that trades NEO.

You can buy EOS and NEO from a wide selection of cryptocurrency exchanges.

Based on trading volume and recommendation we will list some of the crypto exchanges that you can use to buy either EOS or NEO.

Some of the best exchanges to use for buying NEO are:

Some of the best exchanges to use for buying EOS are:

Use our buying guides for additional insights

We have written more extensive guides on how you can buy EOS and NEO. You can find them here below.

The best wallets for NEO and EOS

If you have invested into EOS, NEO, and/or GAS or are planning to then you need to have your own secure wallet where you own your private keys.

Here are some recommended wallets to use with NEO and GAS.

1. Ledger Nano S (hardware wallet)
2. Ledger Nano X (hardware wallet)
3. Atomic Wallet (desktop and mobile wallet)
4. NEON Wallet (desktop wallet)

And there are some recommended wallets for EOS:

1. Ledger Nano S (hardware wallet)
2. Ledger Nano X (hardware wallet)
3. Scatter wallet (desktop wallet)
4. SimplEOS Wallet (desktop and web wallet)

Additional information

For Neo

For EOSIO

Conclusion NEO vs EOS – which is the winner?

So if I will try to summarise the complete detailed comparison of NEO vs EOS and take out the main points and perhaps if I dare to announce a winner?

The main points that I have learned from using and researching both EOS and NEO are:

1. Both are struggling with the concept of decentralisation. Sacrificing decentralisation for output and scalability is ever so present for both blockchains. But at this point in time I think EOS might be more decentralised. But that can quickly change if EOS BP concerns are not solved and when NEO moves on to more nodes
2. Neither blockchains are really getting anywhere near the maximum output. And both are struggling in terms of adoption and usage. How many real-world products and services are actually using Neo or EOSIO today?
3. Doing the whole blockchain thing, with nodes, users, consensus models is really hard. And bringing in the lures of massive ICOs and token profits and then the whole thing gets even harder.

The more I read about other blockchains than Ethereum the more I can applaud Ethereum for its intentions for creating and maintaining a truly decentralised ecosystem.

But in fact, many of the current nodes of Ethereum are run by the same few groups of users in terms of hash rate.

So the problems of profit, decentralisation and usage is not only linked to NEO and EOS.

I can’t really conclude a winner in this review. It would be as useful as the toss of a coin. But I do hope that this guide and comparison was helpful.

And that you yourself can pick a winner?

Other popular guides:

1. The top crypto exchanges in 2020
2. The ultimate list of crypto tools
3. Where to buy Bitcoins
4. Best ways to make money from crypto

Written by:

Per Englund – Founder of Go CryptoWise a cryptocurrency and tech fan that want to see better and smarter products and services that make our lives better and easier

Source: https://gocryptowise.com/blog/neo-vs-eos-a-detailed-comparison/