Since their lows in mid-December cryptocurrencies have recovered somewhat and are making slow but solid progress into the new year. Some are performing better than others, Tron is one and Neo is the other as it climbs over 20% this week.
Last month it was reported that Russia had requested a formal partnership with the developers of the Neo platform via a document from the Russian Association of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain. Newnewstoday.com picked up the article originally stating that the NEO Competence Centre in Saint Petersburg said it received a letter requesting collaboration “in accordance with the request of the President of the Russian Federation, Mr. Vladimir Putin.”
Related articles are emerging today regarding the Russian government’s plans to invest huge sums of money into Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in anticipation of new US sanctions forcing diversification. According to Vladislav Ginko, a lecturer at Moscow’s Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration;
“Because of US sanctions Russia’s elite is forced to dump US assets and US dollars and invest hugely into Bitcoins. Central bank of Russia sits on $466 billion of reserves and has to diversify in case there are limited opportunities to do it (in the future) … I believe that the Russia (Government) will start diversifying its reserves with Bitcoin in February this year when US Congress will introduce a new sanctions against Russia.”
Today the NEO reddit stream is bubbling away with rumors and speculation over this collaboration and Russian crypto cash injection as NEO surges in price. At the time of writing NEO has made 15% on the day and was the top performing cryptocurrency in the top forty. This has enabled it to flip both Ethereum Classic and NEM to take sixteenth spot by market capitalization, which is currently $617 million. On the week NEO has made 22% climbing from $7.77 to $9.50 where it currently trades. Daily trade volume has doubled over the past 24 hours from $100 to $200 million.
Aside from the Russian connection NEO has also been listed as a top ten global public blockchain by China’s Center for Information and Industry Development (CCID);
In the latest yearly ranking released by China’s Center for Information and Industry Development (CCID), which is under the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology,#NEO is listed as Top 10 Global Public Blockchains in Basic-Tech. #blockchain #crypto pic.twitter.com/my6mBMFUcZ
— Neo Smart Economy (@Neo_Blockchain) January 7, 2019
However this is no surprise since China consistently ranks home grown projects over others so the stats, along with China’s monthly chart rankings, can be taken with a big pinch of salt.
NEO has an upcoming Devcon 2019 and NEX event and with consensus algorithm improvements leading to NEO 3.0, so this year will be very bullish for the ‘Chinese Ethereum’ as it is so often dubbed.
