EOS is a blockchain-based development platform designed for building decentralized applications (dApps). Developers can write and deploy smart contracts that power dApps and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
The platform has a native token with the ticker EOS. EOS tokens were first released as an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, but a main-net token swap occurred after EOS Version 1.0 was deployed in June 2018.
EOS is often referred to as a decentralized operating system, where holding tokens represents a proportional share in the network bandwidth, storage, and computational resources. DApp developers must stake a certain number of tokens (called RAM) to cover the resources used by their DApp, but they receive those tokens back if the DApp is taken down.
Because of this staking model, users can interact with and use dApps for free. There are also no transaction fees on the EOS network, and block producers earn rewards from newly minted tokens.
EOS was developed and launched by the software company Block.one, who released the software as free and open source. Block.one built the EOS platform to incorporate 3 major features: scalability, flexibility, and usability.
It aims to be scalable by supporting thousands of commercial scale dApps, facilitating inter-blockchain communication, and separating authentication from execution.
It aims to be flexible through the ability to freeze and fix faulty or bug-laced dApps and incorporating generalized role-based permissions.
It also aims to incorporate usability through a web toolkit for interface development, self-describing interfaces, and a declarative permission scheme.
The EOS blockchain uses a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism with 21 block validators and integrated Byzantine fault tolerance. Delegated Proof of Stake is a consensus mechanism where blocks are validated by a pre-selected group of nodes and it allows for high transaction throughput.
Byzantine fault tolerance is the ability of a network to handle situations where nodes go down or malicious nodes broadcast faulty information. EOS is theoretically Byzantine fault tolerant because 15 out of the 21 block producers are required to confirm a transaction (a 2/3 majority).
For a more detailed discussion on Byzantine fault tolerance and the reason a 2/3 majority is important, refer to our Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance article.
EOS transactions are typically confirmed within 1 second with a 99.9% certainty, as a new block is created every 0.5 seconds. Dan Larimer stated in an April 2018 blog post that EOS can theoretically support over 1,000 transactions per second and aims to scale to 6-8,000 transactions per second in the future.
EOS also implements a mechanism called Transaction as Proof of Stake (TaPoS), where every transaction must include part of the hash of a recent block header. TaPoS makes it difficult to forge counterfeit chains considering the counterfeit chain would not be able to migrate transactions from the legitimate chain.
- DPoS consensus mechanism: See above section.
- Parallel processing: The ability to do things in parallel on the EOS network allows for faster transaction speeds and more scalability. This is planned for implementation in future versions of EOS.
- Network flexibility: If a DApp is faulty and contains a critical bug, the elected block producers can freeze it until the issue is resolved.
- High transaction throughput: EOS can theoretically support over 1,000 transactions per second with hopes that the platform can scale even higher.
- Ownership model: Owning EOS tokens represents a proportional share of the network resources like bandwidth, storage, and processing power. Developers must prove they hold a sufficient number of tokens to create DApps on the EOS blockchain.
- No transaction fees: Sending EOS tokens to another user or using them for a DApp requires no fee.
- EOS Constitution: The Constitution is a multi-party contract entered into by members of the EOS ecosystem by virtue of their use of the platform. The Constitution has 18 articles that outline the rules and user rights governing the EOS blockchain.
- June 5, 2017: EOS Technical White Paper released.
- June 9, 2017: Draft of the EOS token sale smart contact released.
- September 14, 2017: EOS.IO Dawn 1.0 released – the first release of the EOS.IO software development kit (SDK).
- December 5, 2017: Dawn 2.0 released.
- January 13, 2018: Former Bithumb CEO Richard Jung joined Block.one as Head of Korea.
- January 16, 2018: EOS.IO Blockchain Focused Fund formed.
- January 23, 2018: Block.one and Galaxy Digital announced joint venture for $325 million EOS.IO fund.
- April 5, 2018: Dawn 3.0 released.
- April 6, 2018: Block.one signed a $200 million joint venture partnership to accelerate Asia-focused EOS ecosystem development.
- May 11, 2018: Dawn 4.0 released.
- May 31, 2018: EOS Bug Bounty Program went live.
- June 1, 2018: Version 1.0 of open source EOS blockchain software released and EOS Developer Portal went live.
- June 9, 2018: EOS main-net launched.
- July 19, 2018: EOS Version 1.1.0 released.
- August 14, 2018: EOS Version 1.2.0 released.
- September 18, 2018: EOS Version 1.3.0 released.
- October 17, 2018: EOS Version 1.4.0 released.
Block.one has committed to investing over $1 billion into projects focused on growing the EOS ecosystem through their venture capital firm EOS VC. They also host EOS hackathons around the world and fund prizes for the winning projects.
Projects can receive more information about EOS VC and find an application link here: https://vc.eos.io/about-eos-vc/
There is no updated roadmap for the future technical development of EOS.
The EOS blockchain has a native token called EOS. As of December 7, 2018, the total supply is 1,006,245,120 EOS and the circulating supply is 906,245,118 EOS.
EOS tokens represent a share in the platform’s resources – this includes bandwidth, storage capacity, and processing power. Developers who wish to build dApps that run on the EOS blockchain must prove they hold a certain number of tokens and then stake those tokens to deploy the DApp.
Application developers must stake tokens to cover the nominal cost of account creation to sign up new users for their DApp. In addition, they must stake tokens for any storage, CPU power, or bandwidth used by the user. If the developer takes the DApp down, they receive their staked tokens back.
Developers can refer to the EOS Resource Center for up-to-date staking cost calculations. Baseline costs as of December 7, 2018 are outlined…