Layer 1 blockchain
Neo ticker NEO
Summary
Neo N3 runs delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT 2.0). NEO holders vote for candidates with their whole NEO balance. The 21 most-voted candidates form the committee, and the seven most-voted of those act as consensus nodes that propose and sign blocks. Votes are recounted every 21 blocks, and the election only takes effect when more than 20% of NEO has voted. A block is committed once at least N minus F of the N consensus nodes sign it, where F, the number of faulty nodes tolerated, is (N minus 1) divided by 3, rounded down: five signatures out of seven today. NEO is not locked while voting and no slashing penalty was found in the reviewed documentation. Contracts run on NeoVM, and GAS pays fees. 23414
Design
- System
- Layer 1 blockchainThis profile covers Neo N3, the current Neo main chain. Neo X, the separate EVM-compatible sidechain launched in July 2024, is listed only as a scaling layer and in bridge rows. Neo Legacy, the original chain whose mainnet launched in October 2016, was scheduled by Neo to stop producing blocks on 31 October 2025; Neo News Today reported on 3 November 2025 that it was decommissioned that day, so it is treated here as history.
- Settlement family
- Its own design
- Scarce resource
- Stake (proof of stake)
- State model
- Accounts
- Finality
- Other
- Who makes blocks
- For each round the speaker is the consensus node at position (block height minus view number) modulo the number of consensus nodes. If the speaker stalls or proposes an invalid block, the other nodes vote a view change and the role passes to the next node.
- Fork choice
- There is no open fork choice. dBFT 2.0 is documented as giving single-block finality: once N minus F consensus nodes (five of seven) have sent commit messages, the rest cannot produce a different block at that height. By the same arithmetic, two conflicting blocks would need at least three of the seven nodes to sign both (an inference from the fault bound), and no penalty for doing so was found.
Qualifications
- Finality · Partial. A block is final once five of the seven consensus nodes commit to it, with no confirmation-depth wait. No slashing was found, so a conflicting commit would not automatically cost the signers anything; this is committee finality, not stake-backed economic finality.
- Scarce resource · Partial. NEO balances are vote weight, but NEO is not bonded or locked, votes follow balance changes automatically, and no slashing was found. What is scarce is NEO-weighted support for a small elected committee rather than capital at risk.
- Block interval · Applies. The Neo Council set the mainnet block time to 3 seconds in April 2026, down from about 15 seconds. Neo's July 2026 upgrade notice based its fork-time estimates on blocks arriving about every 3 seconds. The committee can change the setting through the Policy contract within a range of 1 millisecond to 30 seconds, and some docs pages still say about 15 seconds.
- Committee account blocking · Applies. The committee can block accounts through the Policy contract. Since the Faun hard fork (mainnet block 8,800,000; operators were asked to upgrade before 3 February 2026), blocking also removes the account's vote, and once a year has passed, signatures from 19 of the 21 committee members can move the account's token balances to the Treasury contract. For accounts already blocked when Faun activated, the year counts from the fork.
- Throughput · Unknown. No throughput figure was classified for this profile. The reference mainnet configuration caps transactions per block, but a cap is not observed capacity.
- Settlement family · Partial. Recorded as other: Neo N3 settles on its own chain, where seven elected consensus nodes commit blocks with dBFT 2.0 and contracts run on NeoVM; nothing settles to another chain. None of the named settlement families describes this.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Security and Scalability
- Gives up
- Decentralization of block production: only seven consensus nodes sign blocks, all chosen by NEO-weighted votes, and about half of all NEO was reserved for the Neo Foundation at genesis. Liveness also depends on that small set: if three of the seven nodes are offline, no block can be committed.Security here means fast, deterministic finality if fewer than a third of the seven nodes misbehave, not stake that can be destroyed for misbehaviour. Running a verifying full node is practical, so checking the chain is more widely distributed than producing it. How much of the foundation's NEO still votes today was not verified.
- Full node at home
- Practical at home 671516The Neo-CLI setup guide lists a minimum of a dual-core CPU, 8 GB RAM and a 50 GB SSD, and recommends a quad-core CPU, 16 GB RAM and a 100 GB SSD, on Windows 10/11 or Ubuntu 20.04. The page was last modified on 30 December 2024, so the figures predate the April 2026 move to 3-second blocks, which makes the chain grow faster. Offline block packages published on Neo's sync site can shorten the first sync, although the guide does not say how to check them; NeoGo is an independent node implementation in Go.
- Throughput claims
- No classified figure recorded
Scaling layers
- Neo X · Sidechain, mainnet 232628293031
Separate EVM-compatible chain with its own dBFT consensus of seven nodes; its governance docs say seven standby nodes run it until at least seven qualified candidates exist and more than 3 million GAS is voted. The reviewed Neo X docs describe no proofs or state posted to Neo N3. GAS moves between the chains through a bridge in which validators sign each transfer (the documented threshold is five signatures), a single relayer submits them, and Governor and Security Guard roles can pause the contracts. Not a rollup.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Built into the protocolLimited scope | Limited to exchanges on Neo N3 itself. There is no protocol swap object, but a Neo N3 transaction can list several signers, each with a scoped signature, and run one script, so two token transfers between two parties settle together or not at all. This is an inference from the transaction format; no audited swap contract or cross-chain hash-locked swap tooling was reviewed. 5 |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; the Oracle native contract lets contracts request HTTPS or NeoFS data, and committee-designated oracle nodes sign each answer before it lands on chain, where it is held in chain state, which the current definition does not count as publication. Oracle answers are trusted to the designated nodes. NeoFS is a decentralized object store paid in GAS; the reviewed sources do not show its contents checked against an on-chain commitment, and its usage and maturity were not verified. 81025 |
| Light clients | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; the StateService plugin publishes state roots signed by committee-designated state validators, and its proof calls let a client check a stored value against a signed root without the full state. Those roots come from a node plugin, not from consensus, and no shipped light client using them is cited, so no value is set. The client must trust the designated signers. 910 |
| Native staking or delegation | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| On-chain governance | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Parallel execution | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Payment or state channels | Unknown | No payment or state channel network anchored to Neo N3 was found in reviewed sources. |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Every account is defined by a verification script, so multi-signature accounts and contract-controlled accounts are native. Signature scopes and witness rules limit which contracts a signature applies to. NeoVM runs general contracts written in C#, Python, Go, Java or TypeScript. 15 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; users cannot attach their own reclaim window or cancellable delay to a payment, and no recovery path for owners was found. The committee can block an account, and since the Faun hard fork signatures from 19 of the 21 committee members can move a blocked account's token balances to the Treasury contract a year after the block (or the fork, for accounts blocked earlier). That power acts on holders, not for them. It comes from the node source and v3.9.1 release notes; the v3.9.0 notice omits it. 1112131417 |
| Rollups | Unknown | Absence was not verified, so the rule that absence needs a source makes this unknown rather than not present. Earlier finding: no rollup settling to Neo N3 was found; Neo X is a sidechain with its own consensus and a validator-signed bridge, not a rollup. 26 |
| Shielded transfers | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Signed partial offers | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
Reading these values
- How this feature is provided
- Built into the protocol, core-team software or independent software says where a feature lives and who can change it. These are implementation layers, not quality: core-team software is not closer to the protocol than independent software.
- Structured assessment pending
- The shared review has not assessed this feature for any chain yet (Account abstraction, Native staking or delegation, On-chain governance, Parallel execution, Protocol-verified messaging and Shielded transfers). That does not mean it is absent, and a chain’s profile may already describe it.
- Unknown
- The review has not established this for this chain under the current definition; the note beside it says why. Unknown is not absent and not a low score. A feature reads “Not present” only when a source shows it is absent.
- Earlier definition
- Payment or state channels, Programmable spending and Rollups keep the earlier definition until the next fact-check. There, “Native” does not separate the protocol from core-team software, “Ecosystem software” does not say who publishes it, and “Partial” does not say which layer.
- Reading across rows
- The list of capabilities is incomplete. Do not read these rows as a chain leading or lagging overall.
Ecosystem & custody
| Product type | Status | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Automated market makers | ThinFlamingo Finance (FlamingoSwap) | DeFiLlama lists Flamingo Finance in its DEX category on Neo, and Flamingo's swap contract repository describes a constant-product market maker based on the Uniswap v2 design; that README still refers to the older NEP-5 token standard. No other Neo N3 or Neo X venue was verified, and liquidity depth was not measured. 3334 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | None found | Neither Tether's supported-protocols page nor Circle's USDC address list includes Neo N3 or Neo X. The USDC.e that Neo X lists on its Chainlink CCIP page is a bridged representation, not USDC issued by Circle on Neo X; that page does not name its source chain. 323536 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | No algorithmic or hybrid stablecoin with material use was verified from a primary source. Flamingo's FUSD was not reviewed. |
| Bridges | First-partyNeo X native bridge (GAS), Neo X message bridge, Chainlink CCIP on Neo X | The native bridge moves GAS between Neo N3 and Neo X; the message bridge, launched in December 2025, carries contract calls and data between the two. Neo X also documents Chainlink CCIP for WETH and USDC.e. No bridge from Neo N3 to Ethereum or other chains was verified. Risk: Native bridge transfers are final only once enough bridge validators sign (the docs cite a five-signature threshold) and a single relayer submits them; Governor and Security Guard roles can pause the contracts, and an owner multisig assigns roles. Bridged assets are only as safe as those parties and the contracts; CCIP adds Chainlink's own trust assumptions. 2229303132 |
| Block explorers | Established in the ecosystemOneGate Explorer, NeoTube, Dora, NeoXscan (Neo X), Neo X Explorer (Neo X) | Neo's developer page lists OneGate Explorer, NeoTube and Dora for Neo N3; the Neo X docs list two explorers for the sidechain. Listing is not a quality check, and explorer data is provider-indexed. 2427 |
| Hardware wallets | ThinLedger (through Neon Wallet) | See custody rows: Ledger's NEO page sends users to the third-party Neon Wallet, and Trezor says it does not support NEO. 3740 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | Through an intermediaryNeon Wallet (third-party desktop wallet published by COZ)Same as native: No | Can: Connect a Ledger Nano to the Neon Wallet desktop app to secure and manage NEO, as Ledger's NEO page describes, with the key kept on the device Can: Log in to Neon Wallet with a Ledger, per the wallet's repository Cannot: Manage NEO or GAS inside Ledger's own wallet app: Ledger's NEO page points only to Neon WalletLedger's page names the Nano S Plus and Nano X but not a device app or Neo N3 by name. A Neo N3 device app's source sits in Ledger's GitHub organization, forked from COZ's repository. Whether it is in Ledger's app catalogue for current devices, and whether voting works through this path, was not verified. neo.org's wallet list still names only the Ledger Nano S and Blue. 373839 |
| Trezor | None foundSame as native: No | Cannot: Hold NEO or GAS on a Trezor: Trezor's NEO page says it does not support NEOUsing a Trezor with Neo X through an EVM wallet was not reviewed. 40 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Neo yet. This is a limit of the service, not a statement about the network.
| Lookup | Status | What it covers and its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Address or account | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Tokens and assets | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| NFTs | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Transactions | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
Sourced developments
Developments: Review overdue Reviewed Sep 27, 2026; next review was due Oct 7, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
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Neo-CLI v3.10.1 scheduled the Gorgon hard fork on Neo N3
Neo announced Neo-CLI v3.10.1 as a mandatory upgrade because it activates the Gorgon hard fork, at mainnet block 12,020,000 (expected around the morning of 1 August 2026 UTC) and TestNet block 17,960,000. The fork brings a fix to NeoVM's SHL and SHR shift instructions, a refactored instruction jump table and updated cryptographic verification. The June 2026 v3.10.0 release had said it did not activate Gorgon. Neo's time estimates assumed 3-second blocks.
- Implementation:released in Neo-CLI v3.10.1
- Release:released July 2026
- Activation:scheduled for mainnet block 12,020,000 around 1 August 2026; activation was not observed in this review
Sources: Neo — Neo-CLI v3.10.1 TestNet and MainNet Upgrade Notice (external site) · Neo — Neo-CLI v3.10.0 TestNet and MainNet Upgrade Notice (external site) · neo-project/neo maintainers — neo releases (external site) · neo-project/neo-node maintainers — Neo-CLI mainnet configuration (external site) · neo-project/neo maintainers — neo v3.10.1 release (external site) · neo-project/neo-node maintainers — Neo CLI v3.10.1 (external site)
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Neo-CLI v3.10.0 added wallet, RPC and Docker changes without a hard fork
Neo released Neo-CLI v3.10.0 as an optional upgrade for TestNet and MainNet. It activates no hard fork, stays compatible with the current network and needs no resync. Neo's notice lists BIP-39 mnemonic import and export for wallets, a separate Expired result in transaction validation, rejection of duplicate Conflicts attributes, a DeferredRelay plugin that relays transactions automatically, wallet RPC methods and CLI commands named sign, relay, signmsg and verifymsg, an official Docker image and fuller RPC diagnostics. It also lists the NeoVM SHL/SHR fix, jump-table refactor and cryptographic verification update, saying the release prepares for the Gorgon hard fork without activating it; the July v3.10.1 notice names these as Gorgon's changes.
- Implementation:released in Neo-CLI v3.10.0 and core library v3.10.0
- Release:released June 2026 as an optional upgrade
- Activation:no hard fork; takes effect when a node installs it. Neo planned MainNet deployment for 26 June 2026, which was not confirmed in this review
Sources: Neo — Neo-CLI v3.10.0 TestNet and MainNet Upgrade Notice (external site) · neo-project/neo-node maintainers — Neo CLI v3.10.0 (external site) · neo-project/neo maintainers — neo v3.10.0 release (external site) · Neo — Neo-CLI v3.10.1 TestNet and MainNet Upgrade Notice (external site)
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Neo Council cut Neo N3 block time to 3 seconds and GAS issuance to 1 per block
The Neo Council approved and executed a single proposal setting the Neo N3 mainnet block time to 3,000 milliseconds and new GAS issuance to 1 GAS per block, with 13 of 21 Council votes against a quorum of 11. The change had been proposed in April 2025 alongside the Echidna hard fork, which made block time a Policy contract setting; before it, blocks came about every 15 seconds with 5 GAS each.
- Proposal:proposed April 2025; approved by 13 of 21 Council votes
- Implementation:executed as an on-chain Council proposal through native contracts
- Release:relied on the Echidna hard fork in Neo-CLI v3.8.0 (mainnet block 7,300,000)
- Activation:announced as executed on mainnet, and Neo's July 2026 upgrade notice assumed 3-second blocks; the actual block interval was not measured in this review
Sources: Neo — Neo N3 Network Update: 3-Second Block Time and GAS Adjustment (external site) · Neo — Neo N3 Releases Neo-CLI v3.8.0 & Proposes Block Time and GAS Generation Rate Adjustments (external site) · Neo — Neo-CLI v3.10.1 TestNet and MainNet Upgrade Notice (external site)
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Neo-CLI v3.9.0 scheduled the Faun hard fork on Neo N3
Neo announced Neo-CLI v3.9.0 for TestNet and MainNet with a hard fork at mainnet block 8,800,000 (TestNet 12,960,000). It adds a Treasury native contract, a committee whitelist for fee-free contract methods, BIP-32 and BIP-39 wallet support, a REST server plugin and new hash functions. The node source gates changes to account blocking, including recovery of funds from accounts blocked for a year, on the same fork, which the mainnet configuration names Faun. A hotfix the next day (core release v3.9.1; Neo's notice calls it Neo-CLI v3.9.2) fixed how accounts already blocked at the fork are recorded.
- Implementation:released in Neo-CLI v3.9.0
- Release:released January 2026
- Activation:scheduled for mainnet block 8,800,000; the activation block itself was not observed in this review
Sources: Neo — Neo-CLI v3.9.0 TestNet and MainNet Upgrade Notice (external site) · Neo — Neo-CLI v3.9.2 TestNet and MainNet Upgrade Notice (external site) · neo-project/neo maintainers — neo v3.9.0 release (external site) · neo-project/neo maintainers — neo v3.9.1 release (external site) · neo-project/neo-node maintainers — Neo-CLI mainnet configuration (external site) · neo-project/neo maintainers — PolicyContract.cs (native Policy contract) (external site)
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Message bridge between Neo N3 and Neo X went live
Neo announced a message bridge that carries arbitrary messages between Neo N3 and Neo X, including contract calls, callbacks, relayed results and store-only messages, with contracts deployed on both chains and developer SDKs. It complements the existing token bridge; reaching other EVM chains was described as a future direction.
- Implementation:contracts deployed on both chains, per the announcement
- Release:announced as live
- Activation:live per the announcement; usage not measured
Sources: Neo — Introducing the Message Bridge on the Neo Ecosystem (external site) · Neo X documentation — Native bridge architecture (external site)
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Neo X opened its core repositories
Neo made eight Neo X repositories public on GitHub: its geth-based node, documentation, the EVM and NeoVM sides of the Neo X and Neo N3 bridge, threshold-encryption libraries and examples, the MPC ceremony and a zero-knowledge key-generation library. The post says Neo X had been developed out of public view until then.
- Implementation:repositories published
- Release:source published; not a protocol release
- Activation:no network change
Source: Neo — Opening the Neo X Core Repositories to the Community (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Neo through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- The current committee members and consensus node operators, and whether more than 20% of NEO is voting so that the election is in force, were not verified.
- How much NEO the Neo Foundation still holds and how it votes were not verified.
- Current fee settings were not read from the Policy contract; the docs list defaults that the Council has since lowered.
- The 3-second block time comes from the Council announcement; the actual block interval on mainnet was not measured.
- Full-node storage size after the move to 3-second blocks was not measured, and the hardware guide was last modified in December 2024.
- No throughput figure was classified.
- Whether the committee has ever used the power to recover funds from blocked accounts, and which accounts are blocked today, were not reviewed.
- NeoFS mainnet status, usage and pricing were not verified.
- Flamingo's FUSD design, other DEXs on Neo N3 or Neo X, and liquidity depth were not reviewed.
- Bridges other than the Neo X native bridge, the message bridge and CCIP on Neo X (for example Poly Network routes) were not verified.
- Neo X consensus node operators, the size of the bridge validator set and who holds the bridge Governor and Security Guard roles were not reviewed.
- Ledger app catalogue availability for the Neo N3 device app, and hardware-wallet signing on Neo X, were not verified.
- No payment or state channel network anchored to Neo was found; absence was not exhaustively checked.
- The Neo Legacy shutdown is confirmed only by a community news report; no post-shutdown notice from Neo itself was found, and the promised off-chain migration route for late holders was not reviewed.
- Activation of the Gorgon hard fork (mainnet block 12,020,000, expected around 1 August 2026) was not observed.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 27, 2026 Next check due Oct 27, 2026.
- Neo N3 introduction (external site)
- dBFT 2.0 algorithm (external site)
- Governance and incentives (external site)
- Electing consensus nodes (external site)
- Transactions (external site)
- Neo-CLI installation and requirements (external site)
- Synchronizing blockchain data (external site)
- Oracles (external site)
- RPC API reference (external site)
- Role.cs (native RoleManagement roles) (external site)
- PolicyContract.cs (native Policy contract) (external site)
- NativeContract.cs (committee signature checks) (external site)
- neo v3.9.1 release (external site)
- Neo-CLI mainnet configuration (external site)
- NeoGo repository (external site)
- Neo N3 Network Update: 3-Second Block Time and GAS Adjustment (external site)
- Neo-CLI v3.9.0 TestNet and MainNet Upgrade Notice (external site)
- Neo-CLI v3.10.1 TestNet and MainNet Upgrade Notice (external site)
- Neo Legacy Network Shutdown Notice (external site)
- Neo Legacy MainNet officially shut down, off-chain migration to be available in the future (external site)
- NEO and GAS (external site)
- Introducing the Message Bridge on the Neo Ecosystem (external site)
- Neo X MainNet Launches (external site)
- Neo developer resources (external site)
- NeoFS (external site)
- Neo X documentation overview (external site)
- Neo X networks (external site)
- Governance in Neo X (external site)
- Native bridge architecture (external site)
- Native bridge roles and responsibilities (external site)
- Token bridge technical flow (external site)
- CCIP bridge (external site)
- Flamingo Finance protocol record (external site)
- flamingo-contract-swap repository (external site)
- Supported protocols (external site)
- USDC contract addresses (external site)
- NEO wallet (external site)
- app-neo3 (Neo N3 device app) (external site)
- Neon Wallet repository (external site)
- NEO wallet support (external site)
Report an error
Found something wrong or out of date? Reporting is free, and every chain goes through the same process. Published corrections appear in the public log.
Funding disclosure
Funding disclosures appear here when an upkeep arrangement exists, in the form “Upkeep funded by [name]; verdicts unaffected.” The funder ledger has not been published yet. Neutrality & funding