If you've been following the rise and fall of different altcoins on coinmarketcap, you will have noticed a cryptocurrency called "Antshares" that jumped over 400% a few weeks ago.

Antshares is China's first ever original public chain project, and is sometimes also nicknamed "China's Ethereum".

So there's been a big hype around this project - and since I have a series on my blog where I introduce new or particularly interesting cryptocurrency projects, this was a perfect match!

Overview

Name: Antshares (NEO)

Market cap: $393,276,500 (Top 14)

Current price: around $7.87

Launched: 2014

Mission Statement: "Smart assets & application platform"

Whitepaper

- Website -

What is Antshares and what makes it special ?

Antshares is the first ever public chain project from China. Considering the size of the Chinese market, that fact alone already makes Antshares very interesting.
It combines the power of smart contracts and digital assets, enabling security, trust and transparency through digital certificates.

"AntShares is a decentralized and distributed network protocol based on Blockchain technology. AntShares allows digitalizing real-world assets, enabling registration, depository, transfer, trading, clearing and settlement via a peer-to-peer network. AntShares keeps records of the transfers of digital assets with e-contracts.

"As China's first ever original and open source public chain project, Antshares serves as a smart assets platform. Smart assets are the combination of smart contract of blockchain and digital assets. Antshares allows for a smarter way for assets registration, issuance, and circulation.

Digital assets exist in the form of electronic data and with blockchain technology, digital assets becomes decentralized, trustless, traceable and highly transparent. Antshares underlying technology supports multiple types of digital assets and use digital certificate to enable trust for public chain, namely the assets issued by users via digital certificate are protected by law. On the other hand, for more complicated scenarios, users can use smart contract to enhance and enrich the functions of assets. Besides, users can also create smart contracts with other functions unrelated to assets."

Who created Antshares?

Antshares was founded by a company called ONCHAIN, a Shanghai-based fintech firm that focuses on Blockchain projects.
Onchain CEO Da Hongfei is also the founder of Antshares. After graduating from the South China University of Technology, Da Hongfei made himself a name in the Chinese cryptocurrency scene and eventually became the CEO of Onchain in 2014.

Partners

Antshares has partnered with some big names - for example Alibaba, one of the biggest online commerce companies in the world, and WINGS, the Blockchain Crowdfunding DAO.
Antshares has even partnered with Microsoft, although there are no specific details yet. All we know is that they are working on a legal blockchain project in relation to Microsoft Azure.

Antshares founder Da Hongfei, illustrated by Cointelegraph

Why the name "Antshares"?

“Ants have a social structure in which they enjoy equality but shoulder different tasks. Share is both a verb and a noun. I think the name AntShares speaks for itself, that we were actually inspired by these diligent and marvellous creatures and the spirit of the Internet and the theme of our time.”
-Da Hongfei, Antshares founder

Rebranding

In a conference held on June 22, 2017, Antshares actually announced a complete rebranding.
They have introduced the platform’s new name and brand, NEO, which means novelty or newness in Greek. The rebranding will be complete in the 3rd quarter of this year, and the short form for the cryptocurrency will switch from ANS to NEO.

The newly rebranded NEO and the old Antshares logo

Conclusion

Antshares or NEO has shown some immense potential. It's often referred to as the "Chinese Ethereum" and is backed by well-known partners like Microsoft or Alibaba.
The price has skyrocketed 400% in one week, reaching the all time high of around $11, and then returned to the current price level of about $7-8 .
In my personal opinion, I think we haven't seen the last of Antshares yet, and there we will probably hear more from this project in the future.

Have you invested in Antshares? What's your opinion about this project?

Images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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