Neo News Week in Review: October 12 – October 18

Ecosystem Celebrates MainNet Milestone and Interactive Launches

The Neo blockchain ecosystem commemorated a significant decade of operation on Oct. 15 as Neo News Today (NNT) hosted a dedicated community X Space titled Neo MainNet Turns 10 – A Community Conversation. The virtual gathering brought ecosystem participants together to analyze the protocol’s evolutionary milestones and future trajectory. Due to technical issues on the Neo X host account, the event recording was published in two distinct installments. Discussions featured prominent leaders across the ecosystem, including Neo founder Da Hongfei alongside core representatives from Neo Global Development (NGD), AxLabs, Neo SPCC, R3E Network, Neo Pod, and Frank Coin.

To celebrate the 10-year operational mark, NNT also deployed Neo HODLers, a browser-based bullet heaven game available directly at neo-hodlers.ndapp.org. The title features a two-week competitive leaderboard backing a prize pool of 250 Neo X $GAS reserved for the top 10 finishers. Emphasizing accessibility, the game eliminates traditional onboarding friction by allowing users to launch the title without setting up an account or connecting a digital asset wallet. Simultaneously, NGD confirmed that the prize pool for WhisperDark, an on-chain dungeon explorer leveraging AI-assisted mechanics and xGAS micropayments, climbed to 369 $GAS ahead of its scheduled conclusion on Oct. 26.

Developer Initiatives, Rebranding, and Ecosystem Grants

Developer support remained active across developer organizations, led by COZ issuing 277 $NEO across two distinct contributions in round 2.15 of its Proof of Working 2.0 grant initiative. The latest grants recognized open-source advancements in governance transparency tooling as well as smart contract deployment security. Round 2.15 lifted the initiative’s cumulative payouts to 7,356 $NEO across 15 allocation rounds since its relaunch in January.

Infrastructure team Next Block officially announced a comprehensive rebrand from its former identity, Vaulten. The reconstituted account is designed to serve as an umbrella hub for all decentralized products produced by the development collective, including the legacy Vaulten project and the Pusharoo smart contract workspace. Accompanying the rebrand, Next Block introduced a dedicated Neo N3 TestNet $GAS faucet, enabling builders to draw test assets to deploy, audit, and interact with smart contracts on the network.

Infrastructure Hardening and NeoFS Economic Adjustments

Core engineering team Neo SPCC tabled a major governance proposal targeting the economic architecture of NeoFS MainNet. Published Oct. 14 on GitHub under issue #4226, the draft calls for an adjustment to core protocol parameters that would increase storage pricing by 50 times and lift container fees by five times. The proposed changes are subject to a two-week public review phase that concludes on Oct. 28. In parallel, Neo SPCC issued technical upgrades on Oct. 9 for both the NeoFS REST Gateway and the Web Management Panel. These updates fully excised RANGE EACL functionality from the access tier, aligned tooling with the latest NeoFS storage nodes and software development kits (SDKs), and incorporated security hardening, stricter input validation, and bug fixes.

Community engagement and on-chain metrics also showed steady distribution. Weekly telemetry from nDapp registered 93,371.28 $GAS claimed by network participants on Neo N3, set against 929.16 $GAS permanently burned via transaction throughput. In developer and micro-community programs, SpoonOS wrapped up Season 2 of its Community Contribution Program, disbursing between 15 and 50 $USDT to its top four contributors while teasing Season 3. Community gaming saw NNT distribute 4 $GAS via GasBot Trivia, and Frank Coin awarded 100 FRANK to its top player alongside 40 FRANK to 10 randomly selected community members in a Telegram game session. Additionally, episode 121 of NNT’s The Smart Economy Podcast featured NUVA Labs CEO Anthony Moro, addressing the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), private credit, tokenized mortgages, institutional on-chain migration, and blockchain financial infrastructure.

Why This Matters

Neo’s 10-year milestone highlights the protocol’s staying power in a rapidly evolving layer-1 and layer-2 environment. The proposed 50-fold price adjustment for NeoFS MainNet storage underscores a vital transition toward long-term economic sustainability and anti-spam protection for decentralized cloud storage networks. Concurrently, the ongoing capital deployment through COZ’s Proof of Working 2.0—surpassing 7,300 $NEO in distributions this year—demonstrates an intentional push to reward tooling, audit mechanisms, and infrastructure hardening across both Neo N3 and EVM-compatible Neo X environments.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the proposed NeoFS fee adjustment?

Neo SPCC’s proposal (GitHub issue #4226) suggests increasing NeoFS MainNet storage pricing by 50 times and container fees by five times. The proposal opened on Oct. 14 and remains open for public commentary through Oct. 28.

How can users participate in the Neo HODLers competition?

Users can play directly via browser at neo-hodlers.ndapp.org without linking a web3 wallet or registering an account. The top 10 ranked players on the two-week leaderboard will share a 250 Neo X $GAS prize pool.

What does Next Block’s rebrand from Vaulten entail?

The Next Block umbrella brand now hosts all projects created by the team, including Pusharoo and Vaulten. Alongside the announcement, the group launched a Neo N3 TestNet $GAS faucet for smart contract testing and development.