Meteor is a Neo initiative to identify the strongest product direction for Neo's next stage of growth, combining council input, market research, ecosystem knowledge, and technical and commercial judgment into a focused recommendation; not an endless strategy document.
Three phases define the effort.
- Phase 0 (now): A council-nominated research team maps where the blockchain market is heading over the next five years, evaluates candidate directions against shared criteria, and produces a ranked shortlist.
- Phase 1: A lean strategy workshop defines the business hypothesis, target customer, and first sellable wedge.
- Phase 2: Technical and product planning turns the selected strategy into an actionable roadmap.
Meteor feeds directly into product definition and roadmapping. The selected direction, evidence, and council rationale become the foundation for a formal product definition and phased roadmap.
Neo has strong technology and a committed ecosystem, but no shared product direction everyone can organize around. Without one, builders make their own assumptions, fragmenting effort. Meteor provides a credible, transparent, testable product thesis so decentralized teams make better independent decisions toward a shared outcome.
Community-weighted decision matrix. An explicit decision matrix with 15 categories is at the center; market timing, customer pain, buyer clarity, strategic fit, differentiation, revenue plausibility, ecosystem activation, execution feasibility, production-MVP asset requirements, technical leverage, risk, learning velocity, strategic optionality, and more. Weights are not set behind closed doors: they come from a time-bound Neo Council vote; one ballot per seat; with public results.
Structured concept scoring with outlier review. The council scores each candidate against each weighted category, producing a ranked shortlist via a traceable, auditable method. Before publication, a Delphi-style review surfaces material outliers for discussion; voters get one chance to revise ballots. In-progress results stay censored; final rankings, outlier analysis, and rationale are published.
Public by default. Vote mechanics, category definitions, research themes, and final results are public unless an item carries a genuine confidentiality constraint. Private items are acknowledged with a non-sensitive summary.
Lean governance, not a committee. A small council-nominated research team coordinates the work; broader input flows through structured lanes; broad input, narrow decision authority, clear traceability.
Ecosystem signals from the start. Meteor will also sweep GitHub Discussions and other public surfaces for outstanding deliverables, proposals, and developer needs; feeding research and a bootstrap roadmap worked in parallel to Phase 1. Neo's outstanding feature backlog will also be organized: existing requests and community proposals will be collected, categorized, and sequenced into a structured backlog; reflecting top-down strategy and bottom-up ecosystem demand.
Meteor is moving forward with meaningful backing:
- Erik Zhang: Has agreed to support the initiative, including code deployment and roadmap endorsement.
- NGD: Has confirmed support and will vote in council.
- Core Developers: Have agreed to support.
- Neo Council members: A significant number are engaged and supportive.
These commitments do not pre-approve a direction; that is what the process determines.
Meteor is the primary source for where Neo is heading.
- Finalize the council voter roster and open the category-weight vote.
- Name the council-nominated research team and begin field research.
- Launch the ecosystem deliverables sweep.
- Publish vote-ready category definitions and voting instructions.
Follow along as the process unfolds.