The world of cryptocurrencies is full of great personalities who have contributed to the development and evolution of this technology, and one of them is Erik Zhang. Let's learn more about the life of this developer and his contributions to the crypto world.
Ethe name of Erik Zhang It is one of the most recognized in the crypto world and it is no wonder. As a developer Zhang is widely known in the community. Your real name is Zheng Wen Zhang, but is known worldwide as Erik Zhang. Zhang was born in the internationally known city of Shanghai in China.
Very little information is known about his first years of life, since he has maintained a strong veil of privacy on these aspects. However, it is known that Zhang graduated from the renowned Shanghai University in 2009 as a Computer Specialist.
Since then, Zhang has participated in various large-scale projects. All of them have left a very clear mark on his experience as a programmer, which he has demonstrated tremendously on multiple occasions.
Beginnings of his programmer career
After graduating from University, Zhang started working on his first projects. The first company that signed him was Shanda Games Limited. Shanda a company recognized worldwide for its online games among them Ragnarok Online, MapleStory y Dungeons & Dragons Online. At this company, Zhang worked as a computer security specialist, dedicated to security systems for such games and their platforms. It was in Shanda that Zhang had his first contact with Bitcoin and this would impress you. It was 2014, Bitcoin was beginning to take off and become very popular around the world.
That same year upon leaving Shanda, Zhang moved to Beijing City. Once there he started working with another tech giant, Huobi. In Beijing, Zhang had a golden opportunity. This by being able to attend the Global Bitcoin Summit 2014 (GBS 2014) that took place in the city. Despite China's efforts to reduce the media impact of the activity, it was a success and attracted many companies and interested in this technology.
But GBS 2014 meant much more to Zhang. It was here that he met Da Hongfei. Hongfei at the time was preparing the presentation for AntShares the forerunner of the current cryptocurrency NEO. This would be the time of the initial push that would lead Zhang to become part of AntShares development and make his mark on the crypto community.
A short time later, Zhang left Huobi and returned to Shanghai, to work alongside Da Hongfei in AntShares.
Your participation in AntShares and the birth of NEO
Upon returning to Shanghai and starting to work alongside Hongfei his work focused on improving and creating a functional prototype of AntShares. The project itself was just an idea for an asset digitization platform. However, with Zhang's arrival the project began to evolve rapidly.
Zhang and Hongfei transformed the project into something more ambitious that included the ability to execute smart contracts. They also began to build the foundations of a digital identity system, registration and management of digital assets as well as the ability to execute smart contracts written in various languages.
The evolution of AntShares was such that they decided to rename the project. With this, a new blockchain and cryptocurrency was born, NEO. But NEO's evolution was not just a simple name change and adding features that other blockchains already had. Instead, Zhang worked hard to create a new consensus protocol. who called Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT). This is a type of Byzantine fault tolerance It offers high yields and a good level of security.
With this new consensus protocol Zhang stood out in the crypto community. His system it opened up the possibility of virtually unlimited scalability without sacrificing large security fees. With the presentation of the whitepaper His new protocol quickly gained popularity and his work was adapted to other cryptocurrency projects.
In parallel, Hongfei and Zhang would create the company Onchain. This would take care of provide blockchain technology services your clients using the potential of NEO and its platform DNA (Distributed Network Architecture).
Your role today within NEO
Erik Zhang is co-founder and CTO (Technical Director) of NEO and Onchain. It is also part of its core of developers. Despite being the main developer of "Chinese Ethereum" as NEO is known, Zhang's interest in NEO is more focused on its development and technical evolution. The visible face of the NEO project is Da Hongfei, while he is dedicated to developing code, as he said in a interview for CCN.
However, Zhang is holding an incredible achievement: NEO development almost entirely and solo. The developer was practically the sole developer of the project for almost 24 months. However, in 2016 with the growth of the NEO community, the development situation of the project began to change and diversify. This led to the creation of the Developer Core of which Zhang is the main piece of direction.
Among other tasks that Zhang performs at NEO are DNA (Distributed Networks Architecture) development. She is serious the cornerstone of the integration of blockchain services of the Onchain company. DNA enables the integration of tailor-made blockchain solutions created by Onchain. Among its main clients are companies such as Alibaba y Microsoft China.
With this there is no doubt that Erik Zhang is one of the great developers in the crypto community. The genius behind the development of NEO and all its technology and that at the same time, drives the development and adoption of blockchain technology in all spaces. Quite a Jedi knight participating in the Cryptocurrency War.