Most of this week’s crypto news has been dominated by Litecoin and Ethereum. Both have broken all-time highs and both have taken some of the limelight from big daddy Bitcoin which has ranged between $16,000 and $17,400 over the past few days. LTC has corrected from a previous top of $338 on December 12 and Ethereum is still hitting new tops surpassing $750 a few hours ago.
Other altcoins have been up and down but one that has made big positive moves in the past day or two is NEO. Often referred to as the Chinese Ethereum, NEO has been trading pretty flat over the past few months. Its last flurry of activity was in mid-August when it was re-branded from its previous incarnation, Antshares. It reached a high of $48 and has been falling back ever since, ranging in a channel between around $25 and $35 for most of September and October.
The Chinese dragon awoke yesterday and broke through key resistance areas around $40. From there on it headed up past $50 for the first time before pulling back slightly. NEO has jumped around 48% in just over 48 hours.
NEO is traded mostly on Bittrex which has almost 30% of the total; second exchange is Binance with just over 25% followed by Bitfinex at 21%. The total volume in the past 24 hours according to Coinmarketcap.com was $433 million and market cap currently stands at $3.2 billion.
News of a partnership between NEO, Regtech leader Coinfirm, and the specialist venture platform QRC may have initiated the push. The trio will be working together to nurture a compliant blockchain ‘smart economy’ with a particular focus in Asia. This week’s collaboration was initiated when Coinfirm CEO and Co-Founder Pawel Kuskowski and QRC CEO Adam Vaziri joined the NEO team at NEO’s blockchain competition kickoff event in Tokyo according to PR Newswire.
NEO, Coinfirm and QRC have teamed up to address the enduring insufficiency in blockchain regulation which encumbers every country with a crypto currency exchange market. Tackling this obstruction could open up the entire crypto ecosystem to the mass market, and support the trend for ICO’s which have already been banned in China and South Korea.
Similar to Ethereum, NEO is both a crypto currency and a blockchain platform for decentralized apps. Western speculators have been drawn to its Chinese origin for the prospect of huge growth. Any news that the Chinese government will ease restrictions and officially approve the NEO platform is eagerly awaited. Until then NEO ‘hodlers’ can enjoy a rare spurt up the charts.
