To many this may be a surprise but Antshares is China's first original and open-source public blockchain project. Started by Onchain, Antshares is a decentralized and distributed network protocol built to serve as a
Smart Assets platform

So what exactly is Antshares?

Antshares promises “Digital Assets for everyone.” It's a developers platform built using Blockchain Technology and designed to establish a Global Digitized Smart-Asset Platform for the mainstream user.
Smart Assets are a combination of smart contracts that combines both Blockchain and Assets. It provides a more convenient and "smarter way" for asset registration, issuance, and circulation.

''Antshares is about building a financial system bridging the real-world assets”

It allows digitalizing of real world assets, enabling registration, depository transfer, trading, clearing and settlement via a Peer-to-Peer network. This is done by keeping Record of transfers of digital assets with smart-contracts and with Antshares, digital tokens generated by e-contracts function as general underlying data and can be used by recording titles and assets, including equities, creditor claims, securities, financial contracts, credit points, bills, and currencies. Enabling Individuals and Businesses to manage Smart Contracts effectively, safely and legally

There is potential for Equity crowdfunding, Equity trading, Employee stock ownership plans, P2P financing, Private equity funds & Supply chain financing

Antshares is a Smart-Asset token that can be implemented easily, efficiently and is able to enforce many different functions, that is where it's value is derived. This means it can be employed in a variety of places and workspaces as it more accessible & compatible to different businesses and use cases.

At a gathering at the Microsoft headquarters in Beijing on Thursday, with about 200 people in attendance, Antshares, lead developers announced a complete rebranding of its blockchain solution, as well as a number of other developments detailing their ambitious plans forward.

Antshares allows people to map real world assets using smart contracts. Though currently it is mostly being focused in China before tapping into the international waters. Consider that Antshares right now is dominant in China, there is a lot of potential for growth in a Nation with almost 1.4 billion citizens. As the world's largest emerging market economy, thanks to its leading manufacturing, agriculture and telecommunication service industries boosting them up, there are many ways in which Antshares can provide added value to businesses

IPO's, Portfolio management, transfer of claims, asset management, and many more. These are just a few targeted areas the Antshares Blockchain can be implemented. It's just a pity that currently the information on the Antshares is limited due to language barriers, however Antshares is rebranding itself to appeal more to international investors

AntShare (ANS) is a digital asset that represents the ownership of the AntShares platform. In order to facilitate the payment of commissions and other transactions for the operations of the platform. The platform has set the total number of AntShares at 100 million, with the smallest asset unit being 1 AntShare.

ICO

AntShares was originally from China and was the first fully refundable ICO in which the investor could choose to waive and withdraw funds at any time prior to the launch of the AntShares software. The successful ICO process that had been planned for a month (August 8, 2016 to September 7, 2016), in the first 2 weeks of collection already had more than 4400 Bitcoins of capital, therefore the phase of ICO was terminated with several days of anticipation due to the overwhelming results obtaining in total a collection of 6199 Bitcoins.

In order to maintain transparency and accountability, the platform partnered with two respectable cryptocurrency exchange houses in China during the ICO process.

Antshares can now be traded on 5 Crypto Exchanges: Yunbi, Yuanbao, Jubi, 19800 and Bittrex

Developers

AntShares was developed by a company called ONCHAIN, based in Shanghai. Da Hongfei is the CEO of ONCHAIN as well as the creator of AntShares since it's development from 2014. It has a rather strong technical team, as many of those have been part of the development of Huobi, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in China.

Antshares can now be traded on 5 Crypto Exchanges: Yunbi, Yuanbao, Jubi, 19800 and Bittrex

Difference between Antshares and Antcoin

If you own Antshares, you technically have a STAKE in the Antshares blockchain. Many, investors are confused between the differences between Antshares (ANS) & Antcoin (ANT), since they both represent two tokens on a single blockchain. Did you know? That, you need one Antshares address to receive both AntShares & AntCoin, meaning that someone could sent you both tokens using the same address. ANC will be written into the corresponding ANS addresses proportionally

Investor who hold AntShares with the official GUI wallet, will receive “AntCoins” as each block is mined

Staking Antshares will mint Antcoins into existence over time (though at a decreasing rate every year). The Antcoins themselves are used for digital asset exchange. But someone could be invested in the Antshares business without necessarily using the blockchain themselves. In a similar way, I can use Antcoins to make contracts without losing my vested interest in Antshares as a business. ANS holder can claim these ANC to their ANS address anytime they wish to

Antshares --> A Stakeholder of the Neo Smart-Assets Network

Antcoins --> Offical Token used to pay for Netowrk ''GAS''

Saving Tip

NEO shares (ANTSHARES) cannot be divided, same as the shares you hold in a company; undividable.

Let's say you want to do a test transaction, which I would recommend doing so with the amount of 2 ANS since the minimum is set at 1 ANS for withdrawing. My mistake which ended costing me 6$ is that I forgot that ANTSHARES are not divisible so if you withdraw an amount based on a none decimal number, you'll receive less ANS.

There won't be Noticification that will explain this to you on Bittrex, so be careful since you need to account Transactions Fees before withdrawal to get most out of your Antshares

''As of 11th July 2017 the withdrawal fee for Bittrex Exchange for Antshares is set at 0.35 ANS!''

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Let's say, our goal is to do test Transaction of 2 Antshares!
2 ANS Withdrawn with the -0.35 ANTSHARES Bittrex Fee
will sum up to = 1.65 ANS

Since 1.65 ANS is not a complete nondecimal number, you'll only receive 1 Antshares instead of 1.65 ANS. Don't make the same mistake I made, so your first test transaction should be 2 ANS + Bittrex Transaction Fee's

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In this Scenario, I should have withdrawn exactly 2.35 Antshares in order to receive exactly 2 ANS (No-less or More) after considering Bittrex Exchanges Withdrawal Fee's. Doing this properly, can save you up to 1 complete Antshare and once withdrawn to GUI Wallet, you can begin claiming Antcoins from staking your Antshares! Hopefully, none of you losemuch money when withdrawing from Bittrex's Exchange, get the most out of your ANS and enjoy staking!

Regarding discussions and news on NEO/ Antshares, Here's their Whitepaper
Try to get accepted into the WeChat group: AntsharesOrg
Official Neo Twitter Account
Dedicated subReddit
Antshares rebranding to NEO Announcement

Fan-Made Video on Antshares