EOS Launch Scheduled for June 2
After a unique Initial Coin Offering that lasted one full year, the most eagerly anticipated Blockchain – EOS – is finally going to launch on June 2. Block.one, the company behind EOS, has raised more than $2 billion through its ICO. The company has received massive support for this new Blockchain on the promise that it is going to be massively scalable and is much more user friendly than any of the current Blockchains in the industry.
The 21 Nodes
The entire assertion that EOS will be faster, cheaper and more scalable than any other Blockchain so far rests on the project’s consensus algorithm. The algorithm used is the delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS), wherein a fixed number of nodes are chosen to act as validators. In EOS’ case, that number is 21.
The way it is supposed to work is that each of the nodes will take turns at verifying blocks really rapidly. The expectation that is the each node will take a turn every 3 seconds. The fundamental thought behind this process is that is there are fewer verifiers, then it is easier to process transactions much more quickly.
Since these validators have a big responsibility, they also get rewarded handsomely – the EOS community will decide what that reward should be. However, most probably, the reward will be in the form of newly minted EOS tokens, just the way Bitcoin works. Because of this, several dozen organizations are vying to become one of the validators.
Block.one will not be the one to decide who gets those 21 spots; there will be a voting process through which the positions of validators will be filled.
Currently Concerns and Challenges
The challenges that are facing EOS just before its launch are multiple. First is Block.one’s hands-off approach to the launch of this new Blockchain project. The company had stated right at the beginning of the project that it would not be launching the Blockchain. Even the project’s most ardent fans are disappointed with this approach and were expecting more involvement from the project’s creators.
Related to the fact that Block.one and its developers are taking a back seat during the critical launch period is the lack of education for the EOS community on how the all-important voting process will work. The entire premise of the project revolves around the 21-node validator voting process. And while there are a couple of videos as well as blog posts circulating about how the voting process works, people are still worried about how things will pan out without the creators’ support.
The co-founder as well as CEO of Scatter, an application for storing as well as interacting with the up-coming EOS blockchain, Nathan James has voiced the community’s sentiments – that a large part of this launch has fallen to the community to handle.