Neo Council and Core discuss real-world integrations, governance upgrades, and ecosystem growth plans

The Neo Council and Core Development group convened online on Nov. 25 to review progress across ecosystem initiatives, including several real-world integrations aimed at bringing on-chain activity to retail, entertainment, and large-scale commercial environments. The meeting also addressed governance upgrades, developer engagement proposals, and updates to fee-related technical enhancements.

Real-world integrations advancing toward MainNet

The meeting opened with updates centered on partnerships designed to bring mainstream users into contact with Neos infrastructure.

Cidade Mazzarato

COZs Tyler Adams provided an update on the scope of work being defined for the Cidade Mazzarato initiative, a real-world deployment intended to bring on-chain settlement into retail and entertainment environments. Cidade Mazzarato is a large retail and entertainment complex in São Paulo that includes a luxury Rosewood hotel, residential apartments, approximately 70 retail storefronts with restaurants, a Soho House, a large amphitheater used for A-list performances, an alternate-reality technology attraction, and a cultural hub anchored by a historic church.

Adams said the team is currently scoping integrations across several systems within the complex. These include on-chain loyalty redemptions, custom point of sale flows to support stablecoin payments, vendor integrations for stables, point issuance and burn mechanisms, and an NFT-based ticketing system for the amphitheater. He noted that the intent is for all settlement to occur on Neo N3 MainNet, however scoping continues with Mazzaratos technology teams.

Iron Studios

The second major real-world application discussed was Iron Studios, a global producer of licensed art sculptures. Adams shared that approximately 6,000 units will be distributed over the next 12 months, with digital certificates of authenticity issued as NFIs on Neo N3.

The first deployments will include sculptures from Star Wars, Predator, DC, and Marvel franchises. The team will pilot activations during the upcoming Comic Con Experience in Brazil, an event where Iron Studios is also a part-owner.

Orbit

To conclude the updates portion of the meeting, NNT team member Dean Jeffs shared a preview of Orbit, an upcoming nDapp feature that will allow users to earn rewards automatically for interacting with approved contracts. Rewards accumulate based on usage share and can be claimed directly through the app, with unclaimed rewards redistributed proportionally to active participants.

Governance enhancements and onboarding toolsGovernance portal MVP available for testing

The Council also reviewed the new governance portal MVP, which Flamingo released for early testing. Jeffs reiterated the importance of beginning to use the platform, noting that proposals, comments, and node registration are already functional and ready for real-world testing. He encouraged members to start using it so discussions and decision-making can begin shifting into a structured, transparent environment.

Flamingos Adrian Fjellberg emphasized that continued development depends on real usage of the MVP. He said the team will iterate quickly based on feedback and bug reports but stressed that the version released is capable of supporting discussions and early votes. Fjellberg added that onboarding all node operators is essential so proposals can be properly voted on and sentiment captured from the wider community.

Participants also noted that the broader community is welcome to join the portal, leave comments, and help test the feature set as it evolves. Planned additions, such as sentiment polls and permissionless discussion creation, will move forward only after this first phase demonstrates consistent usage across Council and Core participants.

European developer hub proposal

The European Developer Hub proposal is one of the first initiatives now available for review on the governance portal. Introduced by Jeffs, the proposal outlines the creation of a Council-funded developer hub in Europe, developed in collaboration with Lunar Strategy. The initiative aims to restore consistent in-person developer engagement through workshops, office hours, and structured onboarding programs.

Jeffs described the hub as an opportunity to “rebuild the culture and the community” through sustained regional developer relations, a model that supported earlier periods of ecosystem growth.

Community members and Council participants are invited to review the proposal on the governance portal and contribute comments as it moves through discussion and refinement.

Technical updates: fee reductions, whitelisted contracts, and upcoming network changes

Core Developer Shargon reported that the execution fee factor decimal adjustment, designed to give more granular control over transaction costs, has been merged and is ready for release once client updates are completed. In parallel, another mechanism enabling the Council to designate specific contracts or methods as fee-exempt is nearing completion. This whitelisted contracts feature would allow approved applications to run designated operations at zero cost, supporting onboarding and real-world integrations that require frictionless user interactions.

A separate discussion focused on message signing, a capability needed for node operators to authenticate themselves on the governance portal without exposing private keys. Fjellberg explained that while wallet providers such as Neon and NeoLine already support signing arbitrary messages, the Neo CLI, which most validators use, does not. His pull request to add this functionality worked locally but led into broader questions around establishing a consistent, chain-specific standard for message signing.

Developers noted that enabling arbitrary message signing without safeguards could create security risks, including signature replay across MainNet and TestNet. Shargon said resolving this safely may require implementing a domain separator or a similar mechanism to prevent cross-chain reuse of signatures. Core contributors agreed to port the pull request into the neo-node repository and continue refining it so node operators can authenticate reliably while maintaining protocol-level protections.

Both the fee-related upgrades are functionally understood but require releases before deployment. The timing of that release remains under discussion due to other items in the queue, including whether NEP-25 will remain in the next milestone. Some developers argued removing it would accelerate fee improvements, while others indicated the current implementation is stable. Final alignment will depend on further coordination with the proposals author.

The planned move to a 3-second block time also remains technically ready. Both the C# and Go clients support the upgrade, and the change can be deployed once validators coordinate on timing. Any activation will likely be paired with an adjustment to GAS per block to maintain economic balance.

Finally, work continues on the foundation required to flatten GAS voting rewards, a measure intended to broaden validator competition. Developers reiterated that the rollout depends on implementing a reliable proof-of-node system to ensure that candidates operate active nodes before reward structures can be safely modified.

Next steps

Jeffs encouraged all Council and Core members to register on the governance portal, join the Discord coordination channels, and continue contributing proposals and feedback.

The group tentatively plans to hold its next meeting in about four weeks, subject to holiday schedules.