What is EOS (EOS)?

EOS is a blockchain platform designed with a very simple objective: to be a blockchain with commercial capacity. This means that it is capable of deploying decentralized applications (DApps), being highly scalable, and serving millions of concurrent users. 

What is EOS?

EOS is a blockchain platform designed to deploy decentralized applications (DApps). Its operation is similar to the Ethereum platform, with the exception that it is faster and more scalable. Allowing developers to create decentralized applications more efficiently.

The birth of the project

The start of the project is due to the work of Daniel Larimer, best known for creating the platform Bitshares. He is also a co-founder of the Steem blockchain and is currently CTO of EOS. Among other of Larimer's achievements is the creation of the consensus algorithm DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake Algorithm) and technology Graphene. Another important figure is Brendan Blumer, who is the current CEO of the project.

Larimer announced its first launch at a conference in 2017. Back then, EOS started with an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) launch. The token distribution schedule would be as follows:

1. 200.000.000 tokens (20% of the total) distributed over a period of 5 days. This period began on June 26, 2017 and ended on July 1, 2017.
2. 700.000.000 tokens (70% of the total) divided into 350 23-hour periods. Each of these periods distributes a total of 2.000.000 tokens starting on July 1, 2017
3. 100.000.000 tokens (10% of the total) reserved for block.one.

At first, the starting price was $ 5 USD per token. However, the price fell rapidly to $ 0,48 USD. In November 2017, EOS started to climb. In January 2018, it reached its historical maximum around $ 17,8 USD.

Community development

The project he turned officially in open source software on June 1, 2018. At that time, it laid the foundation for programmers to exploit the potential of this blockchain. On the other hand, EOS token holders act as shareholders of companies listed on traditional exchanges. In this way, the holders can cast votes and participate in the government of the blockchain, in proportion to their actions.

With these characteristics, it was transformed into a community development monitored by block.one. The reason for this is to allow a more accelerated development of the objectives.

Pillars of its construction

EOS is a project highly focused on solving many of the problems of blockchain technology. Especially those who keep it away from massification and worldwide adoption. To achieve this, it has a series of fundamental pillars to fulfill, they are:

1. Free use. The platform should offer flexibility to developers and users to offer free services. This points to a more widespread adoption of the technology.
2. Recovery against errors. The platform must be robust enough to correct errors when they inevitably occur.
3. Sequential performance. There are some applications that simply cannot be implemented with parallel algorithms due to sequentially dependent steps. For this reason, the platform must support fast sequential performance.
4. Parallel performance. Large-scale applications need to divide the workload across multiple CPUs and computers.

How does EOS work?

EOS is a blockchain platform designed to enable vertical and horizontal scaling of decentralized applications. Esto is achieved through a construct operating system type upon which they can build applications.

En este sentido, EOS is similar to Ethereum. The capabilities of both to enable the development of distributed applications are immense. However, there are important technical points where EOS has a certain advantage.

Among these points are:

1. Ability to provide accounts, authentication systems and databases.
2. Asynchronous communication between nodes..
3. Parallel application programming to harness the potential of multiple CPU cores and / or clusters.
4. High scalability.
5. Elimination of fees and commissions.
6. Quick and easy implementation of decentralized applications.
7. Simple update system.
8. Error recovery.

Another important point is that it has a consensus protocol designed for high scalability. In the development of EOS, Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS). In this way, all those who have EOS tokens will be able to choose to produce blocks thanks to a voting and approval system. The production of currency is permissive. In other words, a user can produce blocks in proportion to the votes he accumulates. The network can produce one block every 0,5 seconds and batches of 126 blocks each time.

Relevant technological features of EOS

DPoS - The Architect of EOS Scalability

The high EOS scalability is possible thanks to the use of a consensus algorithm thought for it. This algorithm is that of Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) Proof of Participation. This algorithm is a substantial improvement to the consensus algorithm of Proof of Stake (PoS). This system holds that EOS token holders choose block creators through a continuous approval system. Where each participant in the network can take part in the creation of blocks according to the number of votes they receive.

This scheme of operation enables high scalability on the blockchain where it is implemented. At the same time, eliminates mining and maintains network security. To get a clearer idea of ​​the level of EOS scalability, the network can currently handle more than 80 million transactions per day. And that is just the beginning.

Transaction systems

Thanks to the DPoS consensus protocol, EOS has a very efficient transaction system. Thanks to DPoS, a transaction can be considered confirmed with 99,9% certainty, 0,25 seconds after its issuance. 

In addition to DPoS, EOS implements an algorithm of Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance (aBFT), a kind of Byzantine fault tolerance. The goal of this is to achieve much faster transaction irreversibility. The aBFT algorithm provides 100% confirmation of irreversibility in 1 second.

Another improvement to the transaction system, comes from the algorithm Transaction as Proof of Participation (TaPoS). This algorithm requires that each transaction include part of the hash of a recent block header. Thanks to this design, the falsification of transactions on the blockchain is made difficult.

Accounts - Creating a simple interface for the use of the blockchain

Another of the main characteristics of EOS, is the ability to create unique accounts, human readable up to 12 characters long. This name is chosen by the creator of the account. The creator of the account must reserve the necessary RAM memory to store the new account. This until the new accounts bet on the reserve of their own RAM.

Smart Contracts at full blast

EOS is a platform that enable the ability to use smart contracts like Ethereum. Thanks to this functionality, you are able to deploy distributed applications and services (DApps). The main feature of this characteristic is that you do not use a virtual machine for your Smart Contracts. Instead, use a API C / C ++ based programming. As a result of this, smarts contracts are fast and very flexible. A situation that encourages its optimization, high scalability and security. In addition, there is extensive documentation that facilitates the task of programming these smarts contracts.

“Our team is exploring some innovative solutions to improve the scalability of the blockchain and facilitate the development of multi-threaded decentralized applications. #eosio will continue to lead the industry in scalability and ease of development."

Daniel Larimer - Official Twitter account

Management and administration of resources in EOS

One of the most relevant points in the construction and administration of a blockchain is the administration of resources. This in order that malicious actors do not abuse the resources that the system has. To achieve this, three types of resources are managed, which are:

1. Bandwidth and log storage (disk). Bandwidth and storage management is a fundamental point. Especially since these are necessary in two components of use; the instantaneous and the long-term.
2. Computing and computational arrears (CPU). This is a critical point. Well, the operation of the network depends a lot on the control of the CPU computing resources of the nodes.
3. State storage (RAM). The state storage is information that can be accessed from the application logic. Includes information such as order books and account balances. For example, the content of a blog post and comments are not read by application logic, so they should not be stored in the state of the blockchain. Meanwhile, the existence of a post or comment, the number of votes, and other properties are stored as part of the state of the blockchain.

Governance and constitution system

EOS recognizes the power originated from token holders and that they delegate to block producers. Block producers are given limited and proven authorization to freeze accounts, update faulty applications, and propose forced changes to the underlying protocol.

To achieve this, a system of choice for block producers is included. Before any changes can be made to the blockchain, block producers must approve it. If block producers refuse to make the desired changes by token holders, they are removed. If the block producers make changes without the permission of the token holders, all other full node validators (exchanges, etc.) will reject the change.

In addition to this, it is allowed to establish a peer-to-peer terms of service agreement. This contract is what is called "Constitution". The content of the same defines the obligations between the users. In addition, it facilitates conflict resolution by establishing jurisdiction and choosing the law. Each transaction transmitted on the network must incorporate the hash of the constitution as part of the signature. This is done in order to explicitly link the signer to the contract.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

1. Thanks to the use of the DPoS consensus algorithm, the scalability is very high.
2. Aims for widespread adoption of blockchain technology, betting on its decentralized application model DApps. This gives him the chance to beat his direct rival, Ethereum.
3. It has a very solid development team with clear objectives.
4. It has a security model that relaxes and makes administration of distributed applications and services easier.
5. The ability to create accounts makes user-friendly handling of blockchain transactions easier.
6. It fairly guarantees access to bandwidth and other network resources. This according to the tokens that the user has in their possession.
7. Optimization is a fundamental part of this project. Since using followed, TaPoS, DPoS, EOS seeks to optimize all the resources within the network.

Disadvantages

1. Not intended to maintain anonymous transactions. In fact, the use of accounts simplifies the identity tracking of those who use the blockchain.
2. The fact that a private company is strongly tied to the development of EOS. This point causes disagreement about the EOS “development community”. Indicate that private interests can prevail over community interests in development.

Links of interest