For people just getting into Neo, this is some very helpful information and will allow you to get the most out of your investments!
For information on how to mine Neo (NEO), read our other post on mining NEO.
How to Buy Neo Coins
- Sign up on Coinbase. This is how you can quickly begin buying Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum.
- Sign up on Bittrex. You will use your purchased Coinbase Bitcoin to trade into Neo.
- Don’t feel like you need to buy an entire Bitcoin on Coinbase – fractions are perfectly fine to purchase.
- Transfer the Bitcoin from your Coinbase wallet to Bittrex. It should take about an hour to complete.
- Begin buying Neo from the market page on Bittrex.
Holding Neo is similar to being a shareholder. You, as a Neo holder, have the ability to vote/dictate how the Neo platform is structured in utilized. For this reason Neo is a public blockchain! With our votes, we get to establish who are full nodes as well as remove full nodes we do not like. With this ability, Neo holders get to establish the transaction fees associated with implementing smart contracts.
Gas is utilized to pay those fees and are more useful for developers. Gas will be the coin used to pay the transaction fees (once there is a transaction fee implemented) thus it is the divisible coin.
Neo = shareholders, running the platform, setting transaction fees, creating gas Gas = paying transaction fees
Now for which will hold more value.. in my opinion it will be Neo. High Gas prices is limiting for developers
Also, Neo is divisible on exchanges because exchanges will keep those small decimal amounts when people send Neo out, and eventually those decimals will add up to a whole number for them to sell. If you look on the Neo blockchain using the scanner above, you’ll see that Neo is only in whole numbers on the blockchain.
GAS is a currency, but not for the exchange of goods or services between parties but for using the platform. It’s up to ICOs that build on NEO to implement a currencies/tokens for their projects. Correct me, if I’m wrong.
So you’re holding shares of the blockchain (NEO) which gets you a return in form of GAS, which is fueling the platform. So you might say GAS is in fact a currency but just for developing on the platform. It’s rare at the moment but will steadily increase.
In regards to the indivisible question, NEO is divisible on an exchange due to the way that exchange trading occurs: when you execute a trade, the trade itself doesn’t actually occur on the blockchain to transfer keys from seller to buyer. The exchange manages the trades at an aggregate level, and then when a user submits a deposit request (e.g. to an external wallet), checks that user’s balance, and then submits the notice to the blockchain for the key transfer. Similar to when you deposit cash into your bank account, while your bank balance says $500, the bank doesn’t actually have $500 sitting in their vault with your name on it, physically allocated to you. When you submit a withdrawal request, they take it from a register, and reduce your account balance.
As a result, traders can deal in theoretical units (in the case of NEO, decimal shares) that are then aggregated upwards to whole numbers, if applicable. For example, if a trader purchases 0.5 NEO, and then 0.6 on an exchange in two separate transactions, they then have over 1 share, and thus have ownership in NEO that they can withdraw. However, say they only executed the first trade at 0.5, while they can sell to someone else on the exchange, they can’t withdraw anything because it’s not how the NEO blockchain works–they technically don’t own 1 share.
- Please, if you are holding Neo for long term, move your Neo to a wallet. Why? The reason is that your Neo is constantly producing a coin called Gas, which is used for transaction fees and implementing smart contracts. If you leave it on the exchanges, they keep your gas. Gas is trade-able on certain exchanges such as Binance and for a pretty good price too, so start collecting!
- You do NOT need to leave your wallet open for it to produce Gas!
- Also, ANY wallet will produce Gas! So do not limit yourself to a single type of Wallet, use whichever you prefer. I find that the NEON wallet is simplest and easiest to use. The NEON wallet has been audited and deemed 100% safe to use by the Neo team.
PLEASE WRITE DOWN YOUR PRIVATE KEY! CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH.
Wallets will not store your private key, and if you lose your private key, you will lose access to your Neo.
***Binance exchange will reward you with Gas and not keep it for themselves.
If you wish to keep track of your Neo and Gas holding, use the phone app Blockfolio!
- When moving your Neo from Bittrex to a wallet, please only transfer whole numbers of Neo (and 0.1 for the transaction fee) Example: If you have 50.87 Neo, please only withdraw 50.1. If you try to withdraw 50.87, the 0.77 additional Neo will go to Bittrex Example 2: If you have 70.99 Neo, please only withdraw 70.1 Neo.
- Neo will produce gas every block which you can then claim from your wallet. The NEON Lite Wallet has a claim button to easily do this.
- As long as you have your private key for your wallet, your Neo and Gas coins are safe. Your coins are on the blockchain, and your private key gives you access to them. PLEASE do not EVER send your private key over email or text. Safest thing to do is write it down on a piece of paper and do not store in on your computer.
- For those of you who were lucky enough to buy Neo when it was Antshares, if you log into the NEON wallet with your private key, it will automatically have been converted to NEO. So you have to do nothing!
Some very helpful links! (All of these can be found on the side bar of the Neo Reddit)
NEON Lite Wallet Links – https://github.com/CityOfZion/neon-wallet/releases
Mac: 75e28561366fce63338d930f83ad6bb88cbff7bd17820fb860e48f7e882d8f42
openssl sha -sha256 Neon-0.0.3.dmg
Windows: c5efab9ebde83c598b98d959fbfec061285489f8a6ebf270600d1ec3abb9e293
certUtil -hashfile "Neon Setup 0.0.3.exe" SHA256
Linux (appimage): 73a7c29453dc0b3324eec1d18a6183f30d46c6da4b1f5be9a32eed1d48df9d77
sha256sum Linux.Neon-0.0.3-x86_64.AppImage.tar.gz
Linux (debian): c52c2bc775b5f7ff1ab9514c3ca3918044b134ba99d10ea08036356b75ba5594
sha256sum Linux.Neon_0.0.3_amd64.deb.tar.gz
Calculating how much Gas you will make – https://neotogas.com
- Use the ‘actual’ calculations for the most realistic values
- How much Gas will be produced for the following years:
Tracking your transactions or public address – https://neoscan.herokuapp.com/
- If your transaction is on here, that means it will go through! Great place to look if youre concerned about your funds.
- If you want to discuss Neo, please consider joining the Slack! It is very active and people can help answer questions quickly!https://neosmarteconomy.slack.com/join/shared_invite/MjIyOTc2OTU4NDk3LTE1MDIxNzE2NTctZTE1Mjg5ZWE3Yw
- Lastly, I think it is very important to know what you’re investing in. These are additional links you can read to learn about Neo, the technology behind it, and what it is meant to do:
- Reconstructing Smart Contracts Part I. The Ghost of Undeterminism Erik Zhang, Da Hongfei
- Reconstructing Smart Contracts, Part II: Parallel Universes and Unlimited Scalability
- Compilation of starter Infos by community member (GAS,Wallet)
- Blockchain project Antshares explains reasons for choosing dBFT over PoW and PoS
- On Byzantine Fault Tolerance in Blockchain Systems
- The Lost Records of Shantou: A Case for Blockchain Tokenization
- Antshares sets out to be the people’s digital asset blockchain
Feel free to tip NEO or GAS if you found this information useful!
Neo Address: AJXcF65VLcyeADrxKHExVLeewaGzCKvsov
This is awesome! So helpful! Thanks!!!
Great information! Appreciate the detailed overview.