Neon Exchange (NEX) ICO Analysis: A Decentralized Exchange With Improved Performance

Executive Summary

Project Description

Decentralized exchanges are claiming more and more space in cryptocurrency market — and deservedly so. The decentralized platforms give users more control over their funds as you don’t require a third party to store your deposits. Exposing a lot of private information and going through complicated verification stages is also unnecessary.

The initial snag was that decentralized exchanges didn’t have user-friendly interfaces, but that was fixed over time. The other downside is: decentralized exchanges have inferior performance levels when compared to centralized exchanges. Because trades on decentralized exchanges have to be automated by smart contracts, there is a loss in speed and subsequently, performance. Therefore, decentralized exchanges are slower and cannot process complex trades. All of that can be the reason why decentralized exchanges are having a lot less liquidity than centralized ones.

The Neon Exchange project aims to combine the best features of the centralized exchanges with the best features of the decentralized exchanges on its new NEO-based exchange protocol. They plan to incorporate a centralized high-performance matching engine into their decentralized platform, thereby allowing complex trades to be handled off-chain. Once the orders are matched, they will allegedly be committed on-chain, meaning there is no security lax. With the high-performance hardware, the Neon Exchange will be able to handle complex trades like market and limit orders.

Additionally, Neon Exchange wants to be the first decentralized exchange to allow its users trade tokens on the NEO blockchain, a la NEP5. Furthermore, they intend to build a payment service that will allow NEO smart contracts interact with assets from other blockchains, giving users the opportunity to transact across chains. What this means, essentially, is: users may be able to send ETH to an NEO smart contract which may then send the funds to another user’s NEO address.

According to reports, Neon Exchange’s token, NEX, will be used for the following on the platform: holders of NEX will claim a portion of fees generated by Neon Exchange and the profits will be shared in a manner similar to GAS staking process on NEO. As Neon Exchange gets more prominent, the more the fees that will be generated on the platform and the higher the reward for holders.

Hard Cap and Valuation

There will be a total of 50 million NEX tokens, and Neon Exchange hopes to raise $25 million for 50% of the token total. The remaining 50% is shared thus: 20% is earmarked for the project’s founders, 15% goes to the NEO Council, 10% is reserved for partnerships, and the final 1% is expected to go towards an employee stock ownership plan. The founders’ tokens are vested over a 2-year schedule with partial releases.

To be able to participate in the NEX token sale, investors have to register for a lottery. The first round of the lottery will have a maximum contribution of $1000 while the second will have a maximum contribution of $9000. Note, however, that the second round will only open if the hard cap is not reached in the first round.

Only NEO and GAS will be accepted during the token sale.

Price Per Token

1 NEX = $1

Important Dates

Registration for the lottery is expected to start on the 12th of March, 2018 and end on 30th of the same month. On the 31st of March, 2018, the first 25,000 lottery winners are expected to be announced with the KYC process commencing on the same day. The process should go on till April 7, 2018.

If the need arises, the second round lottery winners are to be announced on the 8th of April, 2018, with the KYC process starting on the same day.

For now, the available information is that NEX token sale will hold in April. Further details are expected to be announced in the coming weeks. More information can be found here: NEX Roadmap.

Marketing Power

As at the time this post was published, Neon Exchange had over 49,500 followers on Twitter, 5,500+ followers on Medium, over 5,200 members on Telegram, and over 1,700 followers on LinkedIn.

Prominent Advisors

Da Hongfei

• Founder & CEO of Onchain.
• Founder of NEO.

Erik Zhang

• CTO at Onchain.
• Member of NEO council.

Team Members’ Areas of Expertise

Business experts

Fabio Canesin, Co-Founder & Developer

• Co-founder of City of Zion for 9 months (ongoing).
• CTO at Lemonaid Learning Analytics for almost 2 years.

Fabian Wahle, Co-Founder & Developer

• Founder of Altoida AG, a mobile health company, for 2 years (ongoing).

Ethan Fast, Co-Founder & Developer

• Co-founder of City of Zion for 9 months (ongoing).
• Founder of Proxino, a cloud platform for debugging JavaScript, for almost 2 years.

Luciano Engel, Co-Founder & Developer

• Co-founder of City of Zion for 9 months (ongoing).
• Co-founder of Lemonaid Learning Analytics for a year.

Thomas Saunders, Co-Founder & Developer

• Co-founder of City of Zion for 9 months (ongoing).

Target market experts

Many members of the NEX team have contributed significantly to the NEO blockchain in the past. As a result, they have considerable knowledge of the target market.

Marketing experts

Carla Paiva, Marketing and Public Relations.

• Co-founder & Manager at Lemonaid Learning Analytics for 2 years.
• Researcher at UDESC for a year.
• Import Analyst at Komlog Import for a year.
• Master’s Degree in Strategic Management as well as in Custom Duty and International Trade.

Legal experts

No team member with legal expertise.

Software engineering experts

Fabio Canesin, Co-Founder & Developer

• Research Engineer at Schlumberger for 8 years.
• Research Assistant at Polo for almost 4 years.
• Master’s Degree in Computational Science.

Fabian Wahle, Co-Founder & Developer

• Doctoral Candidate & Researcher at ETH Zurich for 3 years.
• Master’s of Science in Artificial Intelligence.

Ethan Fast, Co-Founder & Developer

• Visiting Researcher at Microsoft for 3 months.
• PhD Candidate at Stanford University for 5 years.
• Research Assistant at University of Virginia for 2 years.

Luciano Engel, Co-Founder & Developer

• Creator of NEOScan.
• Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering.
• Mechanical Engineer for almost 8 years.

Thomas Saunders, Co-Founder & Developer

• Lead Software Developer at iDi — Institute for Design Innovation for 2 years (ongoing).
• Application Developer at Modern Carpentry LCC for over two years.
• Lead Software Engineer at GroundSource for almost 3 years.
• Senior Developer at Analog Interactive for 4 years.

Nathaniel Walpole, Designer

• Product Designer at The EarthWorks, a healthcare marketing agency, for 2 years.
• Visual/UI Designer at Kallidus for 6 months.
• E-Commerce Digital Designer at Cotswold Outdoor for over 2 years.
• Bachelor’s Degree in Design for Industry.

Samuel Mansfield, Designer

• UX Designer / Front-End Developer at Omnia Retail for 2 years.
• UX Designer / Front-End Developer at Pointer Brand Protection & Research for over a year.
• Visual / UX Designer at Playlogic Entertainment.
• Visual Designer at Zed Media for 2 years.
• Web & Graphic Designer at Smart Internet Media.

David Schwartz, Developer

• Member at City of Zion for 8 months.
• Core Contributor to Neon Wallet.
• Software Engineer at Leaf Group for over a year.
• Full stack Developer at DockDev for 5 months.
• Advisor to ASSESS+RE, a real estate investment analysis platform, for a year.
• Consultant at WUN System LLC for 2 years.
• Analyst at Lockheed Martin for over a year.

Evgeny Boxer, Developer

• Core Contributor to Neon Wallet.
• Senior Frontend Developer at Propeller Aero for a year.
• Senior Software Engineer at CrazyLister.com for a year.
• Software Engineer at Wix.com for 2 years.
• Software Engineer at Leverate for 6 months.
• Software Engineer at EverythingMe for a year.
• Software Engineer at AOL for 3 years.

Blockchain development experts

Neon Exchange’s founders also founded City of Zion, a community of developers that work to develop and improve the NEO ecosystem. Therefore, there is quite a number blockchain development experts on the team.

Token sale structure

Two of their advisors are in the NEO Council and they are well-connected in cryptocurrency circles. As a result, it is safe to say that they have some ICO launch experience and can help Neon Exchange in this area.

Token economics

Same as above.

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Disclaimers:

• Nothing written in this article is a legal or an investment advice.
• Information is provided on a best-effort basis and is subject to change without prior notice. Be sure to verify everything you read with a project team.

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The analysis was produced by Research Center team members: Alexander Bugaj, Mark Jedd, Eugene Tartakovsky.

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