Days after first initiating its launch in an unorthodox, distributed process, the EOS blockchain isn't yet live, but so far, the software appears to be progressing toward that goal without major issues.
As profiled by CoinDesk, after raising a reported $4 billion over the last year to create the software necessary to launch the blockchain, the company that created it is leaving it to its community to actually get it off the ground. That doesn't mean there haven't been material updates, however, or that Block.One, the company in question, hasn't been involved in the initial booting effort.
Rather, the company released version 1.0.0 of the EOS software on Saturday and already it's published one update to the code, version 1.0.1, a release that Block.One CTO Daniel Larimer described as preventing a "potential crash" in the update notes, along with other minor issues.
This means that, as of now, participants in the EOS initial coin offering (ICO), which ended on Friday, have purchased all the initial ethereum tokens that will ever be used to bootstrap the project. The plan was always for these tokens to be frozen at the end of the ICO, in preparation for a formal blockchain launch, meaning those coins won't be tradeable again until EOS is live. (It's unclear at this time how exchanges are managing their book-keeping while trading continues.)
The last big event took place June 2 at 10:59 UTC, when the tokens froze on ethereum and so-called "snapshots" were taken in order to preserve a record that can later be used to allocate tokens issued on the EOS blockchain to their owners. By all accounts, this occurred on time and without any issues (here's one description).
"Things are going about as we expected. A few road bumps, no show-stopping problems. I'm expecting the [blockchain] to be live in the next couple of days," Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital, one of EOS's most prominent endorsers, told CoinDesk.
Still, it has been remarkable how unified block producers, or the entities jockeying to process transactions on the new blockchain (and thus receive its rewards) have appeared outwardly given the global scale of the launch.
"I've been part of calls of 60 to 90 people every day," Marc-Antoine Ross, the CEO of EOS Canada, told CoinDesk, adding:
"What I think is important is we all published agreement to launch one chain."
Bumps and bruises
But this outward coordination has not been without a lot of behind-the-scenes effort.
Indeed, a controversy broke out in the EOS launch community last week when a group calling itself "Ghostbusters" published a critique of the launch approach led by EOS Canada, another group vying to become a block producer.
EOS Canada had published a piece of open-source software called "EOS BIOS" on April 9, a suite of code that aimed to coordinate the launch of the EOS software. Its had dozens of subsequent releases since then, with version 1.0.0 coming out on Saturday. "A lot of block producer candidates validated this solution to launch the network," Ross said.
That said, the critique was seconded by other block producer candidates.
The May 28 blog post argued:
"Using the EOS BIOS process will create unnecessary risks for the EOS blockchain launch and ultimately all EOS token holders. Also, any negative press on insecurities in EOS blockchain launch or failed attempt to launch the blockchain will have a negative impact on EOS price and reputation."
It argued that the channels between the various nodes needed to be more secure, using layers that obscure IP addresses and encrypt data as it passes between block producers.
EOS Canada promptly responded with a call for "increased collaboration" arguing that some of the vulnerabilities identified were settings needed for efficient testing, not a production launch.
In a subsequent post, Ghostbusters described theirs as the "security first" approach.
See more:
https://www.coindesk.com/eos-blockchain-isnt-live-yet-getting-closer/
