Neo plans Ethereum compatibility via sidechain

Neo is developing a sidechain designed to support Ethereum-based decentralized applications (dapps) and ensure full interoperability with its N3 mainnet, founder Da Hongfei announced at a Hong Kong event.

This announcement serves as a precursor to an upcoming testnet, expected by the end of the year, with the mainnet launch planned for a later date.

The sidechain will inherit key features from Neo, including its Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT) consensus mechanism, to enhance scalability. It will utilize Neo’s native GAS token for both governance and utility functions.

The team claims the objective behind the sidechain is to provide an MEV-resistant platform for EVM compatible dapps.

Founded in 2014 and initially known as AntShares, Neo is one of the oldest smart contract platforms originally based out of China. The Neo mainnet has been running in stable capacity since Oct. 2016.

The Neo virtual machine (Neo-VM), the network’s computing framework, provides a multi-language development environment to give developers the ability to write smart contracts in their preferred languages.

The growing trend of sidechains for EVM compatibility

Utilizing sidechains, which are parallel blockchains, is emerging as a prevalent approach to integrate Ethereum-based smart contracts with blockchains that lack native support for the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

Apart from Neo, developers on blockchain networks such as XRP Ledger, Horizen, and Cardano are in various stages of developing or have already implemented EVM-compatible sidechains to accommodate Ethereum dapps.