Aphelion, a NEO ICO, plans to build NEO-based P2P trading dApp - First Decentralized Exchange on the NEO blockchain with NEO pairings

News has surfaced of a new NEO-based ICO called Aphelion which aims to build the first trading platform for the NEO blockchain. Aphelion aims to provide a Peer-to-Peer trading platform, along with the APH token which will be used for escrow.

As a P2P decentralized trading platform based on smart contracts, the project will likely work similar to Etherdelta for the Ethereum blockchain works. The difference being that Aphelion is an actual dApp, and has no central point of entry. All you need is an open source app to start trading. Aphelion promises instant and completely secure transactions.

The APH token is confusing to me. The whitepaper states it is used as a digital escrow or liquidity verification device (LVD). It doesn't get any much clearer than that - but I think what it comes down to is that the value of APH tokens is used to create a reserve of value, with which orders are filled and matched instantly through their Distributed Exchange Asset Ledger (DEAL) smart contract. I could not discover what benefits it offers to token holders. One would imagine some kind of profit-sharing from the transactions made, but I could not find specifics. If anyone knows, please share in the comments below.

While it is absolutely fantastic to see dApps and most notably exchanges built on the NEO blockchain, I am not so sure about this project. On Reddit there are plenty of people criticizing this project, even calling it a scam. I myself could not find convincing reasons for become a token holder.

Regardless, if this project succeeds into creating an exchange where the default currency is NEO (or GAS), this would do amazing things for the NEO ecosystem.

The ICO is slated to start on November 15th. Even though I would love to see this succeed, currently I cannot advise investing in it due to unclearness of the value-proposition for becoming a tokenholder. It will be interesting to keep an eye on this to see how it evolves.

You can visit the Aphelion ICO website here

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