We are a team of 3 programmers and came together 2 months ago to discuss the creation of this new currency. We looked at all the existing and announced coins and currencies and identified their biggest flaws and advantages. Within this currency we tried/try to combine the best of their features, eliminate the bad ones and add some totally new features.

Technical:

Written from scratch, in C. Not the Java crap that NXT uses (with all the code in one file lol)
Blocktime is 60 seconds, leading to 1440 blocks per day on average.
The units will have 4 decimal points at the start. This can be shifted back unlimitedly. (0.0001 smallest unit at the start)
The initial fee will be set at 0.01 NEONs.
The network will be able to handle 1000tps (transactions per second) at the start.
The nodes can be used with anonymous networks like TOR.

Security:

In the first step it will be possible to anonymize your actions using TOR and the built-in mixing service.
Once our truly anonymized protocol is finished, there will be no need for this, as the transactions will not be associated with a given account anymore. More on that in the whitepaper.

Progress:

Network code: 100% done
Nodes: 100% done
Client: 70% done
Testing: Testnet is running for 2 weeks now. Only some minor bugs found until now.

Features: (all of them are already working in the testnet!)
Unlike Bitcoin and many others, we split up the client and the nodes. This is much more user friendly and will lead to less end-user problems.
The node with all features will be published on release on Windows, Linux and Mac.
The nodes will have all client features(see below) plus this features:
-   Distributed storage
-   Advanced DDoS protection (you can read details on this in the white paper that will follow)
-   Blockchain purging, with bootstrapping. (Master nodes will keep the whole blockchain)
-   Secret killer feature, that will be revealed in the whitepaper!
The lightweight client can be used on Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, Mac and as browser plugins on Firefox and Chrome.
The client will have the following features(all can be dis/enabled):
-   Encrypted chat/messaging
-   Alias System (Every account can create one free alias, everyone after that will cost the minfee. Alias can be traded freely on our decentralized marketplace. But the free alias is blocked from trading for 1 month.
-   Send to aliases (no need to remember the account address)
-   Decentralized marketplace where you can trade any asset/alias
-   Voting system
-   News distribution from devs or any other alias you follow.
-   Mixing service
-   Wallet files if wanted (you can use brainwallet and wallet files both, but this is client side)