WELCOME TO THE NEO POLARIS LAUNCHPAD!

Here you will find a collection of useful information about our ecosystem. 

Neo has a handy Developer Portal that contains documentation, tutorials, tooling, frequently asked questions, and more. Here are some quick links to get you going:

Read on for a general introduction to the Neo ecosystem.

THE NEO ECOSYSTEM

Neo, originally Antshares, is a globally supported blockchain platform for smart contract development. The platform has two native tokens: NEO and GAS. NEO is a token which entitles a holder to vote on the decision making nodes on the platform. There is a total supply of 100 million NEO. The second token, GAS, is distributed to NEO holders through claims of realized GAS generation which are calculated by integrating an address' NEO holdings over the blocks. GAS is distributed to users when they execute a transaction on the network.

ecosystem

Neo can be broken out into 3 layers by intent:

  • Consensus Nodes: At the core of the network, we have consensus nodes. These nodes are responsible for committing transactions to new blocks for minting. Comparatively, there are very few consensus nodes relative the the next layer.  The consensus protocol for Neo is dBFT.

  • Full Nodes: Full nodes are technically identical to consensus nodes, but serve a different purpose in the network. They are meant to propagate published transactions to the rest of the network and relay new transactions to the consensus nodes. Through voting, a full node may be elected into the role of consensus node. For a list of publicly available full nodes, look here.

  • Ecosystem Tools: Ecosystem tools (like wallets, trackers, and other dApps) are built on top of the full-node infrastructure. They interface with full nodes to push transactions into the network and receive published transaction data. In Neo, the primary interface is jsonrpc over https(s), however, interfacing may also be made via tcp/ip.

IMPORTANT CONCEPTS:

  • Account Model - Neo N3 uses an account model for both Native Assets (NEO and GAS) as well as its NEP17 token standard.
  • Finality - Blocks which are minted by the consensus nodes are immutable and impervious to attack vectors commonly found in proof of work architectures.
  • NVM - Transactions are executed in the Neo Virtual Machine (NVM). This virtualization allows developers to write smart contracts in many different languages, which are then compiled into NVM byte-code for deployment onto the network.
  • NeoFS - Neo N3 is packaged with a state-of-the-art decentralized object storage solution called NeoFS.
  • NEPs - Neo Enhancement Proposals are a set of standards and enhancements which have been communally agreed upon within the Neo ecosystem. They can be found here.
  • Oracles - Neo supports a native oracle solution which allows smart contracts to communicate outside of the network using HTTP(s).
  • Network Magic - Each distinct network of Neo uses a magic number to minimize user error when working with the platform. This value can be identified from any node using the version JSONRPC method.

    For Neo TestNet, the magic number is:  877933390