Originally issued as AntShares, NEO was later on rebranded as a direct opposition of Ethereum, the largest Dapp platform across blockchain communities, soon reaching a flattering all-time high of around 170$.
While back in January NEO took surged towards reaching its record price along with 90% of the market, we can now see the asset traded at only around 17$, which means that NEO lost 91% of its value since reaching its all-time high.
Even though the so-called Chinese Ethereum might have posed a threat to Ethereum for a brief, NEO soon started to fall back down, partially due to Chinese bans on cryptocurrencies and ICO taking place once again, which additionally poses the question on the matter can NEO survive the downward trends of 2018?
NEO and the Chinese Market: Are ICO Bans Making it Difficult for NEO?
One of the main factors hats might be influencing the plummeting of NEO in the past months since reaching its all-time high might be the fact that Chinese government still haven’t settled terms of regulations for cryptocurrencies and ICOs in China.
Months ago when ICO bans defined many headlines, having Facebook and Google posing bans on ICO and crypto ads as well, the Chinese government declared that there will be bans on all new ICOs and cryptocurrencies, which also affected NEO, known as the Chinese Ethereum or even called Ethereum Killer by some fans.
In the meanwhile, China cut some slack on ICOs and crypto assets, reconsidering the ban while Facebook and Google changed their policies in favor of blockchain industry; however, the Government of China announced bans on cryptos once again, as the government already proclaimed a ban on 120 offshore exchange markets.
Back in September of 2017, China proclaimed the crypto ban; however, the cryptos were able to recover only a week later. Moreover, there are some indications that China will have another ICO ban proclaimed during September of 2018 as the government considers ICO to be a form of illegal fundraising activity.
Even though China is making it difficult for NEO to showcase its full potential in the market, the currency switched its focus to the US market, where Ethereum has already established Dapp hegemony.
However, with the latest devaluation of ETH and Buterin’s indications that ETH might be touching 0$ in the following months, NEO might find an opportunity to rise up against the fiat, which for now seems like a mission impossible because even though Ethereum touched its 9-month low, NEO makes up for one of the top losers since reaching its all-time high.
Another reason why NEO is seeing massive declines is the fact that there are not enough projects on the platform that could present the driving force of this Dapp focused platform, leaving its potential incomplete at the moment.
However, the tough market trends are making the strongest form of restraining for NEO’s progress, also affecting over 90% of the crypto market.
NEO (NEO) Price Analysis
At the moment, NEO is working on organizing different meetups among which is ETH and NEO meeting to discuss the projects as the two are targeting the same branch of blockchain technology – Dapp development.
In the meanwhile, NEO is still declining against the fiat as the market is going downwards once again, however, NEO is still showing a positive return on a monthly chart where the currency is showing 11% of gains.
NEO (NEO) Weekly Chart CoinMarketCap
In addition to the mentioned positive returned, NEO has dropped by -1% in the course of the last 24 hours, losing -0.4% in the last seven days and over -53% in the course of the last two months.
Regardless, NEO still holds the potential of rising up against the odds currently holding the rank of the 14th largest currency by its market cap. Once NEO manages to attract more developers to the network, the community will most certainly witness the increase in value.
Image Credits: Photo by Li Yang
