Neo-CLI v3.10.1 sets Gorgon hard fork, targets cheaper transactions
Neo-CLI v3.10.1 puts the Gorgon hard fork on the calendar: TestNet is expected around July 24, and MainNet is planned for August 1. The headline change is dynamic opcode pricing. In plain English, normal transactions should get dramatically cheaper, roughly 100x cheaper for normal operations, while attack-like transactions should stay expensive enough to make spam unattractive. Fees sound dull. They are not. They decide whether people actually use a chain. My take: if activity follows the fee cut, lower costs could make Neo easier for traders to use and may support NEO demand.
Gorgon activates at block 17,960,000 on TestNet and block 12,020,000 on MainNet. Neo-CLI node operators need to upgrade before those block heights or risk falling out of consensus. Upgrade on time, and they will not need to resync. The path here was not clean. In April, the Neo Council split 7-7 on a proposed 100x execution fee cut. Most fee-cut arguments stop there. That is only half right. The concern was direct and reasonable: a blanket cut could let attackers jam the network for about US $15. The Council waited for Neo SPCC’s dynamic opcode pricing model instead, which tries to cut costs for ordinary users without handing attackers the same discount.
I read this as a usage bet, not a victory lap. High fees have pushed crypto users away before. Ethereum fees averaged more than $60 in May 2021, and plenty of DeFi users started looking harder at Solana and Binance Smart Chain because both were cheaper. Neo is aiming at that same pain point. Why does this matter? Because if Flamingo token swaps and other standard transactions really become about 100x cheaper, developers lose one practical excuse to ignore the chain. Users lose one too. That could help TVL and make Neo’s native assets more useful. Big if: people still have to show up after the fork.
Neo-CLI v3.10.1 also fixes an RPC wallet bug that had broken ordinary MainNet transfers since v3.10.0 shipped on June 26. For about two weeks, users sending wallet transfers through RPC hit “InvalidSignature” errors. The issue was in SignAndRelay, which changed the NetworkFee field after signing the transaction. That broke the witness signatures. The new version calculates fees before signing, signs again when a fee adjustment is needed, checks the sender’s balance, and enforces a maximum fee cap. I’ll be honest: this is the kind of bug that sounds minor until your funds are stuck during a fast market move. Then it is not minor at all. The quick fix helps, but it also undercuts the usual roadmap-first story. Basic wallet reliability still matters more.
TestNet nodes are expected to start upgrading on July 10. If TestNet behaves, MainNet node upgrades are targeted for July 28. Operators moving from v3.10.0 who use the TokensTracker plugin should check one detail: the plugin now appends NetworkId to its storage directory name, so old data folders may need to be renamed. The release also fixes a DeferredRelay plugin crash on fresh node installs. It patches the SQLiteWallet plugin for CVE-2025-6965 in older transitive SQLite dependencies. Not flashy. Still necessary. Counter to the usual market reaction, this maintenance work may matter more than the announcement if it keeps nodes and wallets behaving during the fork window.
What this means
Gorgon is Neo’s attempt to make the chain cheaper without making it easier to attack. That is the part worth watching. A simple fee cut would have been easier to explain, but probably riskier. Yes, that slightly contradicts the clean “cheaper is better” framing. Bear with me. Dynamic opcode pricing gives Neo a better shot at lowering costs for real users while keeping spam expensive. If it works, dApp developers get a more practical environment. Users may also have a reason to run activity through Neo instead of cheaper Layer 1s.
Investors should watch August 1, but the fork itself is only the first checkpoint. Is that overkill? No, because the better signals come after activation: transaction volume, average fees, Flamingo swap activity, and whether developers ship more on Neo. A clean MainNet activation plus visible usage would help NEO. Delays or surprise upgrade problems could hurt sentiment in the short term. I would watch Neo’s official channels between the July 10 TestNet upgrades, the July 28 MainNet upgrade target, and the planned August 1 activation.