I promised I’d give a broad update on EOS, the drama that has taken place during the launch and my opinions on it. I’m limited to 5000 characters in this post so please excuse the brief explanations. While this is obviously now on the blog, I still intend to post it to eToro if the bug is fixed within the next 24 hours or so. A month ago eToro froze trading on EOS at $12.47 after a high of $17. At the start of June, all exchanges followed, with withdrawals/deposits, and on most exchanges all trading frozen. It was time for the BP’s to launch the network. Several working groups were set up, working together to launch the network and going through the following steps: 1. Take a snapshot of all EOS ERC20 tokens to copy and use as the first block of the new mainnet. -EOS Authority, a UK based block producer, did this within hours and after a day it was verified and agreed upon by all other BP’s. 2. Launch a testnet using the agreed upon snapshot file. Verify that it is correct, that new blocks are able to be created, all the tokens are where they are supposed to be etc. -This took around a week and there were several iterations. I’ve oversimplified how complex this step really is, every time a bug or mistake was found an additional 48 hours of testing was required as a minimum. By June 9th the BP’s were broadly content with the state of the network and agreed to move to phase 3. 3. Users can import private keys, setup wallets and begin voting for block producers. -This was another stage that I expected to take weeks, however a few whales decided to vote early speeding up the process and within a week the blockchain was live. Voting was relatively balanced with the BP’s who demonstrated good understanding and problem solving during the launch being rewarded with the most votes (EOS New York, EOS Canada, EOS Authority, Cypherglass, Bitfinex, EOSDAC, etc. Now, some of the major issues and controversies along the way. Less than 48 hours after the mainnet launched the entire chain was frozen due to a bug. The BP’s met quickly and within 2 hours the chain was unfrozen. Critics have been quick to attack EOS on this, suggesting that 21 BP’s being able to freeze the chain on a whim is terrible design. In fact the blockchain worked as designed stopping the bug from causing any potential damage. The quick reactions of the BP teams, while criticised by many hardcore bitcoiners, was complimented by Zooko, the lead dev of ZCash. This week we saw the second major controversy in EOS. Block producers froze 7 wallets that are allegedly associated with phishing scams for EOS. It has widely been reported that the decision was taken unanimously in secret by the BP’s. This is only a partial truth, in reality the decision was questioned by some block producers who did not agree at first. Other BP’s also criticised some for wishing to keep the decision private, rather than releasing the call to the public. Since then Cypherglass and several other BP’s and the community are pushing for transparency in BP meetings and decision making. What people don’t seem to grasp is that EOS is a blockchain more similar to a nation than any other before it. Users vote for BP’s to represent their views - in time it will be clear what different BP’s stand for, some already stand out in different areas such as transparency, privacy, security etc. I expect BP’s to produce manifestos for their vision, it is then up to the citizens of EOS’s “nation” to vote in or out those they like/dislike. The constitution is in a similar position, it is effectively the agreed upon laws of the “nation” of EOS. Just like normal laws, it can be modified, updated and change with the times. Almost every nation on earth has gone through periods of controversial laws, plutocracies, monopolies, corruption etc, but most eventually find a path to becoming more mature. EOS is no different, what it needs most of all is time, good journalism and informed voters. The underlying idea and technology so far is working entirely as planned. These problems are little more than road bumps.
For the long-term value growth of EOS, the same points I’ve made before still stand. There are plenty of exciting projects being worked on for EOS: Everipedia - Decentralised Wikipedia by the co-founder Unclock - Cyber security platform Lab Ledger - Scientific paper peer review platform Ono - Social network Hirevibes - Jobs platform IRYO - Healthcare protocol EOS Gems - Collectable gem game (like crypto kitties) There are many more than this. There are also hundreds of millions of dollars in VC funding both by EOS VC and BP’s who want to invest in EOS based projects. The network is already above 500 transactions per second with much more scaling available. Over 2.1 million blocks have already been produced. EOS needs wallets, better stats/voting/analytics tools and it’s first major apps to be released, but it works! Next time you read comments telling you EOS will fail and drop under a dollar, remember these points and that everyone thought the launch would never happen a year ago, yet here we are.