Neo may be a victim of the rise in US-China tensions

Neo has come under fire for being a copy of Ethereum. The platform was designed to be a competitor for other blockchain platforms, including Ethereum. However, many in the Western world have decried it as an example of Chinese piracy. A recently launched product, called Flamingo, has been especially controversial, although it has been attracting investments. Robert Leshner, the founder of Compound, tweeted, “It’s the first credible, wholesale, blockchain-scale ‘vampire’ attempt...The success or failure of the project has extremely important ramifications for how we think of Ethereum’s network effect and composability lock-in.” Despite the criticism, Flamingo has more than 1.6 billion USD worth of collateral locked up.

Why should I care? The ongoing tensions between the US and China have illuminated the massive amount of intellectual property theft that has occurred over the past few decades. Chinese companies aren't subject to the same kinds of regulations that companies in the West face, and this has angered many. Despite the fact that Flamingo is likely a copy or remix of another DeFi platform, it has been able to attract large amounts of collateral. If there is continued escalation in the US-China trade space, governments may look for ways to block access to offshore platforms, much in the same way that Chinese apps are currently under heavy scrutiny in the US and other nations.

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