Misleading Chinese NEO project receives backlash

The team from the China-based cryptocurrency project, NEO, has received criticism for their misleading project.
Cryptocurrency projects have become subject to increased scrutiny as fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) campaigns and misleading campaigns emerged on the market. Fraudulent projects have not only hurt relationships between the project and their investors, but have also contributed to making the financial community wary of any cryptocurrency-based project. The Chinese project, NEO, seems to be the newest of these questionable projects to appear.

NEO has quickly risen to popularity in China, as it is now known as China’s Ethereum. The NEO platform provides support for digital certificates. According to China-based developers, NEO provides a solution to a problem often faced in the industry due to questionable nodes often encountered on public blockchains. According to advocates of NEO, the network allows users to register, exchange, and circulates several kinds of assets. NEO provides a method to facilitate trading for both digital and tangible assets by providing users with digital identity solutions. Any asset that is registered using NEO’s digital identity system, is instantly protected by law.

The NEO has recently come under fire from their own investors, as well as crypto-enthusiasts and NEO advocates, via social media. According to the project’s accusers, NEO has led a misleading campaign. Former advocates of the campaign continued to accuse to the project of having a FUD without any foundation.

The accusations ensued shortly after NEO released a promotional campaign which implied that the project could reveal a big announcement soon. Following the promotional teasers, several users took the hint and invested in the project which caused a significant price increase. Several Chinese users even posited that the announcement could pertain to the Chinese government possibly reversing the country’s ban on ICOs.

However, the date of the announcement came and went. The only news was the mention of a new conference aimed at developers. Following the disappointing announcement, the price dropped, as the NEO community grew increasingly angry. Shortly after, NEO released another statement which announced a new white paper for a cryptographic-based decentralized trading system and financial service platform. The announcement fell on seemingly deaf ears, as most investor relationships were too damaged for the NEO community to care.

Since this event, Chinese crypto advocates have expressed their concern that misleading campaigns like NEO's could cause the Chinese government, and other international regulating agencies, to take an even firmer stance against ICOs and cryptocurrencies. If a similar event would ever to occur in the mainstream world of tangible financial assets, the responsible party could face prosecution for their misleading information. Furthermore, behavior like this could cause significant increases and decreases in price, which affects the rest of the financial ecosystem.