Summary

EOS.io (EOSIO) is a blockchain network that is built to run as a decentralized operating system. EOS is the native currency for the EOSIO distributed ledger. The EOS blockchain provides the core functionality, and scalability necessary for large, commercial type decentralized applications to be brought to market. Developers are able to build blockchain applications the same way web-based applications that facilitate transactions and exchanges work. By owning EOS coins, its like a stake against overall server resources, however development does not require payment in the form of tokens, just proof of ownership.

Distribution

To date, 828,948,913 EOS tokens have been mined since the initial release on January 31, 2018. The EOSIO main network went live on June 1, 2018. During initial development, the EOSIO team distributed roughly 1 billion EOS tokens via airdrop onto the Ethereum blockchain so that would-be token holders could participate as miners when the network went live. The CEO of EOSIO, Brendan Blumer pledged US$1 billion back into the blockchain itself to continue scaling and layering new development projects.

Company Foundation

Mission

The EOSIO network was built and developed by Block.one, an open-source, enterprise level software publisher. The aim of the EOSIO platform is to allow developers to scale large decentralizes autonomous communities on the blockchain without sacrificing development time or performance standards. By leveraging all network governance on-chain, there is zero reliance on centralized authorities, institutions, or entities. This also allows for the significant reduction of transaction fees, necessary number of payment gateways, and allows for a higher volume of transactions to be processed per second.

Current Team and Size

EOSIO is managed by a dedicated team from Block.one, a Cayman Islands exempted company that is tasked with the actual development of the underlying software for the main network. The team consists of Brendan Blumer (Chief Executive Officer), Daniel Larimer (Chief Technical Officer), Ian Grigg (partner), and Brock Pierce (partner).

Technical Design

Summary

EOS software leverages the delegated proof of stake (DPOS) model which allows token holders to select block producers through a voting mechanism. The option to become a block producer is open to all, provided they garner enough delegate votes from the community. The total number of block producers is 21, with blocks produced in rounds of 126, at a 0.5 second interval between blocks on the chain. Other notable features of the EOS DPOS involve permissioned mapping, stolen key recovery, and a ‘constitution’ or P2P terms of service agreement that can be calibrated as a binding contract between users.

Algorithm and Functionality

Under the EOS software, the possibility of forks is undermined by cooperation between block producers. In the event of an unlikely fork, consensus switches to the longest chain. Block producers who remain active for a period greater than 24 hours are removed, and can only be reinstated once they’ve convinced the community they are committed to producing more blocks. Block producers caught producing blocks on two or more forks will be voted out.

Byzantine Fault Tolerance – DPOS BFT allows for an infinite scaling of validations. The following model is helpful:

• Propose block
• All participants acknowledge block
• All participants must acknowledge when 2/3 users have sent pre-commitments
• Block becomes final once a given node has received the above verification of commitments (2/3+)
• Unanimous agreement will be reached and guaranteed unless the remaining 1/3+ commitments are faulty, or there is widespread agreement that bad behavior is evident

The DPOS BFT under the EOS network is the only system that can scale to an infinite number of validations (notwithstanding latency). According to Dan Larimer:

“Assuming DPOS BFT with two second block interval and 21 producers, finality can be reached after 1 minute, but a new block reaches finality every two seconds. This is achieved by pipelining the BFT confirmations. Platforms like EOSIO produce blocks every 500ms, but only rotate proposers every 12 blocks. This means BFT finality takes about 3 minutes based upon pure BFT DPOS block confirmations. The end result is 10x faster than Casper for finality for individual blocks, but a new block reaches finality every two seconds versus every 30 minutes.”

Economics

Summary

EOS undermines traditional blockchain networks because it does not have any mining compatibility. The underlying ownership built into the EOSIO network promotes free usage, and eliminates transaction fees. Developers looking to build dApps can use resources proportional to their own stake in the network instead of commonly used PPT or pay-per-transaction models. This allows the forecasting of hosting costs to be more predictable for developers, leading to more effective monetization of dApps on the EOS blockchain.

Adoption

EOS is working towards addressing much debated problems currently plaguing many blockchain projects like scalability, and mitigating network costs, which in and of itself is why EOS remains on the top 10 by market capitalization. Fungibility for EOS tokens across a wide array of different wallets like MetaMask, MyEtherWallet and Ethereum Wallet, alongside EOS tokens being traded on major centralized exchanges like Bitfinex and Huobi (HT)will continue to push EOS adoption going forward.