NEO ranks #58 of 504 cryptocurrencies. On a list that also counts tokens, memecoins, wrapped coins, staked derivatives and stablecoins it appears at #218: 160 of the 217 assets ahead of it are not native coins but tokens or claims. A token is issued on a host blockchain rather than running its own; a claim stands for an asset already counted. Of the 220 non-native assets CoinSpectrum lists above it by market cap, about 48% are claims on other assets, 45% are tokens and 6% are memecoins.
| CoinSpectrum Grade | C · 58/100 · provisional |
|---|---|
| Rank among cryptocurrencies | #58 |
| Rank counting claims | #218 |
| Market capitalisation | $148M |
| Price | $2.10 |
| Circulating supply | 70,530,000 NEO |
| Maximum supply | no fixed cap |
| Consensus family | Proof of Stake |
| Consensus mechanism | dBFT (delegated BFT) |
| Network purpose | Smart-contract platform |
| Ledger type | Multi-asset ledger |
| Launch distribution | Presale |
Market figures from the 28 October 2026 build. Open the live view for every exchange's price, and charts.
C — 58 out of 100, provisional (from 18 of 20 criteria, 28 October 2026 build). With what is not yet measured anywhere from nothing to full marks, the score would be 52 to 63 (C to C).
| Criterion | Score | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Leading Consensus Mechanisms (Source) | 9.1 | group average |
| Consensus: leader ladder | 9.1 | Proof of stake: 9.1 of 10 on the ladder of consensus families ranked by their largest chain's market cap |
| Consensus: family ladder | 9.1 | Proof of stake: 9.1 of 10 on the ladder of families ranked by the combined market cap of their chains |
| Cryptocurrency Standards (Source) | 3.7 | group average, 11 of 13 measured |
| Sound Money Qualities (6 checks) | 3.8 | 1.5 of 4 points, 2 not yet measured source |
| Scarcity: a fixed cap that holds, and a supply near 21 million | 4.7 | no fixed maximum; 70.5 million in circulation: supply scale 9.3, cap 0 |
| Durability: five years or more with no halt, freeze or reversal | ✓ | 10 full years since its first recorded price, no halt, freeze or reversal in five years |
| Fungibility: every unit interchangeable, none the protocol can freeze or set apart | ✗ | an authority can freeze funds: The N3 Policy native contract lets the committee block an account (blockAccount), stopping it from transacting. |
| Divisibility: the smallest unit worth a cent or less | ✗ | 0 decimal places, the smallest unit worth $2.1 |
| Portability: fees of a cent or less and capacity for real demand | – | |
| Verifiability: open-source nodes and checking without a trusted server | – | node software open source |
| Privacy (5 checks) | 2 | 1 of 5 passed source |
| Whitepaper privacy: keys are not tied to an identity | ✓ | Anyone can create keys and receive and send coins; the protocol carries no identity check. |
| UTXO ledger: a new key for each payment, no account linking every coin | ✗ | |
| Network-level privacy: the node hides where a transaction came from (Dandelion++, Tor or I2P, on by default) | ✗ | neo-cli relays transactions directly. |
| Hidden amounts (confidential transactions, RingCT, shielded pools, Mimblewimble) | ✗ | No confidential transactions. |
| Hidden sender and receiver (ring signatures or zero-knowledge proofs, one-time or stealth addresses) | ✗ | No sender or receiver hiding. |
| Scalability (fees, throughput, block time, block space, features) | — | too few measures yet source |
| Fees ($0.001 or less 10, $1 or more 0) | – | not yet measured |
| Throughput (2,478 a second, the busiest network's peak day, 10; 119, the median of the ten busiest, 5) | – | not yet measured |
| Block time (10 minutes 10, less either side) | 4.2 | a block every 15 seconds |
| Block space per 10 minutes (32 MB or more 10) | – | not yet measured |
| Features (3 checks) | 5 | 1 of 2 passed, 1 not yet researched |
| Payments safe to accept within seconds | ✓ | dBFT gives single-block finality, and N3 blocks now arrive about every 3 s. |
| Pruned nodes: a full node can validate and drop old history | – | No documented pruning mode found. |
| Light clients verify payments from headers or proofs, without a trusted server | ✗ | Neo N3 publishes validator-signed state roots, but no light client that checks them ships for users; wallets trust RPC nodes. |
| Security (miner pay and 7 checks) | 6 | 6 of 9 points source |
| Miners paid a day ($1,000 0, $10 million or more 10), 2 points | 0 | not mined |
| Its own hashrate: at least half its algorithm's largest, not merge-mined | ✗ | not mined |
| Largest pool or validator under 50% | ✓ | 14.3% |
| Largest three under 75% | ✓ | 42.9% |
| More than one maintained client | ✓ | 2 |
| Node software is open source | ✓ | The Neo Foundation and Neo founders direct the protocol and the C# reference node; NeoSPCC maintains the independent neo-go node. |
| Real on-chain use: 1,000+ transactions a day | ✓ | about 3,237 a day |
| No 51% attack or deep reorganisation in five years | ✓ | |
| Programmability (tokens, contracts, 5 checks) | 7.8 | 7 of 9 points source |
| Token issuance at protocol level, validated by its own nodes | 2 | NEP-17 token contracts on NeoVM, open to any account for a deployment fee. |
| Smart contracts: a general-purpose contract system | 2 | NeoVM contracts on Neo N3, open to any account for a deployment fee. |
| Multisig and time locks | ✓ | Native m-of-n multi-signature contracts (CreateMultiSigContract, CheckMultisig) plus time-locked contracts on NeoVM. |
| Atomic swaps with other chains | ✓ | NeoVM contracts can hold funds against a hash preimage with a time-based refund (HTLC). |
| An exchange built into the protocol | ✗ | No exchange among the native contracts; Flamingo is a user contract. |
| Cross-chain messaging the chain verifies itself | ✗ | No light-client or consensus-verified messaging in N3; Neo X is a separate EVM chain reached by a bridge. |
| Non-fungible tokens | ✓ | NEP-11 NFT contracts on NeoVM. |
| Decentralisation | 3.1 | section average, 7 of 8 measured |
| Censorship resistant (Source) | 0 | An authority can halt the chain or freeze funds: The N3 Policy native contract lets the committee block an account (blockAccount), stopping it from transacting. source |
| No central team (Source) | 0 | A central team directs it: The Neo Foundation and Neo founders direct the protocol and the C# reference node; NeoSPCC maintains the independent neo-go node. source |
| Who can mint (Source) | 8.6 | Proof of stake: 8.6 of 10 on the ladder of who produces blocks |
| Nodes (Source) | 2.8 | 7 reachable nodes (source: Neo) |
| Holder concentration (Source) | — | Not yet measured |
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 0 | 100% of today's supply allocated at launch to founders, a company, a foundation or investors. NEO has a fixed, indivisible 100M supply created at genesis (as AntShares): 50M sold to early investors and 50M held by the NEO Council/Foundation; nothing is mined (CoinGecko total 100M, circulating 70.53M). source |
| Fundraising | 0 | Sold by its issuer or insiders: 100% of supply was theirs to sell, 45% sold so far. Range 40-50%, midpoint given. The AntShares crowdsales of Oct 2015 (17.5M, 2,100 BTC) and Aug-Sep 2016 (22.5M, 6,119.53 BTC) sold 40M of the 100M fixed supply. NEO's later statements say 50M went to crowdfunding supporters, but the 2016 plan put 10M of that to early contributors including the team. 40-50M / 100M. Two AntShares crowdsales: Oct 2015 (2,100 BTC) and Aug-Sep 2016 (6,119 BTC). Sources disagree on whether 40M or 50M NEO were sold. source |
| Developer share (after launch) | 10 | No developer share: every new coin goes to the miners or validators who produce blocks. NEO itself has no issuance: its 100M supply was fixed at genesis. Block issuance on Neo N3 is in GAS (split among NEO holders, committee members and voters), not NEO, so NEO has no reward cut. source |
| Supply & Demand | 8.2 | group average |
| Supply & Demand (Source) | 7 | average of 6 measures |
| Exchanges (10 or more: 10) | 10 | 35 exchanges |
| Daily volume ($10K 0, $1B or more 10) | 4.4 | $766,799 traded in 24 hours; #519 by volume on the exchanges the site reads (scored on the median day of the last 30, $1,629,650) |
| Turnover (volume ÷ market cap, 5% a day: 10) | 6.2 | 0.95% of its market cap a day, median of the last 30 days |
| Order-book depth (bids and asks within 2% ÷ market cap, 1%: 10) | 8.1 | $395,767 within 2% of the price on 7 exchanges, 0.27% of its market cap, median of the last 2 days |
| Market cap ($1M 0, $10B or more 10) | 5.4 | $148M, 5.4 on a scale of 2.5 points per tenfold |
| Paper trading (futures, options and margin ÷ market cap, 0%: 10, 100%: 0) | 7.6 | futures, options and margin positions 5.8% of its market cap |
| Supply (smaller is better) | 9.3 | no fixed maximum; 70.5 million in circulation |
| Record | 9.7 | group average |
| Record (origin, claims, halts) | 10 | 3 positive, 0 negative source |
| Positive record | ||
| Launched with a stated purpose, not as a joke | ✓ | |
| No claims by its founders that contradict its own design | ✓ | |
| No halt, freeze or reversal in five years | ✓ | |
| Age (years since genesis) (Source) | 10 | 10 full years since 2016-09-09, the first day with a recorded price (genesis not yet researched, so the age can only be understated). |
| Development (work, improvements, unfixed issues) | 9 | 4 positive, 0 negative source |
| Positive | ||
| Steady work, 6 of 6 | ✓ | 304 commits in 12 of the last 12 months (github.com/neo-project/neo); neo v3.10.2, 23 Oct 2026; 8 releases in the last 24 months (Neo Legacy chain retired 31 Oct 2025; N3 continues). |
| Shipped a security fix in two years, +1 | ✓ | Neo v3.10.2, 23 Oct 2026: fixed a transaction witness-verification bypass in IsMultiSigContract. |
| Shipped a scaling upgrade in two years, +1 | ✓ | Neo v3.9 Faun hard fork, Feb 2026: lower fees. |
| Shipped a new capability for users in two years, +1 | ✓ | Neo v3.8 Echidna hard fork, May 2025 (height 7,300,000): Notary contract and secp256k1 public key recovery. |
Twenty criteria, weighted equally. The Cryptocurrency Standards have six sections: sound money qualities (six checks: scarcity, durability, fungibility, divisibility, portability, verifiability), privacy (five checks), scalability (four measures and three features), security (miner pay and seven checks), programmability (token issuance, smart contracts and five checks) and decentralisation (censorship resistance, no central team, who can mint, nodes, holders, premine, fundraising and developer share). Provisional: criteria marked — are not yet measured and are left out of the average. A rating of structure and market depth, not a price forecast or investment advice. How the grade is built · Highest-graded cryptocurrencies.
70,530,000 NEO are in circulation, against no fixed cap — issuance has no defined end.
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 100% of today's supply |
|---|---|
| Sold by the issuer or insiders | 45% of today's supply |
| Developer share received since launch | 0% of today's supply |
| Developer share of new coins today | 0% |
| Nodes or validators | 7 |
| Fundraising | Public sale |
NEO has a fixed, indivisible 100M supply created at genesis (as AntShares): 50M sold to early investors and 50M held by the NEO Council/Foundation; nothing is mined (CoinGecko total 100M, circulating 70.53M).
Two AntShares crowdsales: Oct 2015 (2,100 BTC) and Aug-Sep 2016 (6,119 BTC). Sources disagree on whether 40M or 50M NEO were sold.
Range 40-50%, midpoint given. The AntShares crowdsales of Oct 2015 (17.5M, 2,100 BTC) and Aug-Sep 2016 (22.5M, 6,119.53 BTC) sold 40M of the 100M fixed supply. NEO's later statements say 50M went to crowdfunding supporters, but the 2016 plan put 10M of that to early contributors including the team. 40-50M / 100M.
NEO itself has no issuance: its 100M supply was fixed at genesis. Block issuance on Neo N3 is in GAS (split among NEO holders, committee members and voters), not NEO, so NEO has no reward cut.
Sources: steemit.com · neonewstoday.com · github.com · docs.neo.org · en.wikipedia.org · coinpost.jp. Researched 2026-10-24, medium confidence.
No SEC/CFTC determination — unclassified.
The regulator's position, reported as stated, not CoinSpectrum's. Assets nobody has ruled on are left unclassified rather than sorted by a guess.
NEO is #58 among cryptocurrencies and #218 in the market ranking, which lists wrapped coins, staked derivatives, stablecoins and tokens alongside them. CoinSpectrum counts an asset once, and counts only cryptocurrencies: assets with their own blockchain and their own consensus. A wrapped coin, a staked derivative or a stablecoin is a claim on something already counted; a token, memecoin or otherwise, runs on another chain's blocks. All of them are listed, each in its own section, and none is added to the total. The 160 places between NEO's two ranks are held by claims and tokens, not by other networks. The methodology sets out the rule and the counting rule argues for it.
The price above is the median of the exchanges the site reads live, checked every minute and cross-checked against a market snapshot (how market data is gathered). The grade is scored on published criteria, each with its source (the method). The site is independent, nothing on it is a paid placement, and its statements are signed (about CoinSpectrum, the manifesto).
See the 1 wrapped and staked claim on NEO →