Royal KPN, a Dutch telecoms giant, has been confirmed as a NEO full consensus node following an election by NEO token holders. The move is a milestone for the NEO ecosystem, as it is the first full node operated by an entity not explicitly tied to the NEO project.
KPN is a high-profile entrant into the cryptoasset industry, being one of the largest telecoms companies in the Netherlands with an annual revenue of over €8 billion. It provides mobile phone, fixed-line, and ISP service to tens of millions of customers in the Netherlands and Western Europe.
Although the KPN confirmation came only yesterday, KPN has been committed to NEO for some time now, as their ambition to run a consensus node was originally announced back in January. KPN had already been operating a consensus node on the NEO testnet, and a NEO official blog post from a few days confirmed that the full KPN node on the mainnet was up for a vote.
KPN also recently inked a deal with Schiphol International Airport, serving Amsterdam, in collaboration with other national carriers to build a new telecoms network for the airport.
About NEO
NEO, often referred to in the past as “China’s Ethereum”, employs a voting system whereby token holders vote on election of node operators, somewhat similar to EOS’ election system.
CryptoGlobe recently reported that $97,000 worth of GAS, the NEO ecosystem’s secondary token which is used to pay for transactions, was spent purchasing “.neo” domain names on the proprietary NEO Name Service.
NEO price action since the vote has been negligible, and is currently trading at $16.91 according to CryptoCompare data, down from a 24-hour high of $17.18.
