As the EOS blockchain nears its scheduled launch date of June 2nd, its ICO has now raised in excess of $4 billion. To put that in to context, that’s more than double the ICO funds of TRON or Telegram. The fundraising has taken a year, but how have they done it, and what is EOS anyway?
The Secret of Success
The EOS blockchain will work as a smart contracts blockchain, on delegated proof-of-stake (dPOS), where 21 nodes act as validators. These validators will have large amounts of responsibility, and as such will be rewarded with EOS tokens for their work. The theory behind this is that fewer validators equals faster processing. The year-long ICO has seen a huge amount of marketing, with a known $1 billion said to be earmarked for investing in startups who wish to build new projects on the EOS blockchain. But the other $3 billion that has been raised to date, is as yet – at least publicly – un-allocated.
Critics Take Aim
EOS is not without its critics – perhaps this is unsurprising, given that it has smashed all ICO records to date. But some of the more recent attacks have held enough sway to affect the price of the EOS token in the days leading up to its launch. One such example is from Qihoo 360, the Chinese Internet security giant, who claim that EOS has over 330,000 vulnerabilities that could lead to mass attacks. Indeed, Block.one CTO Daniel Larimer has himself offered $10,000 to anyone who can find a bug – just 5 days before the launch.
Help us find critical bugs in #EOSIO before our 1.0 release. $10K for every unique bug that can cause a crash, privilege escalation, or non-deterministic behavior in smart contracts. Offer subject to change, ID required, validity decided at the sole discretion of Block One.
— Daniel Larimer (@bytemaster7) May 28, 2018
And, of course, Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, is sceptical about the concept behind EOS, as he wrote on his blog.
But despite these issues, the EOS ICO has hit the $4 billion mark, and there will soon be the chance to vote for validators, although Block.one are yet to release any educational material about how to do this, or how much it will cost. It would appear then, that there are a number of unanswered questions that need to be answered sooner rather than later. The world will be listening – and there isn’t long to wait now.
Image Credit: Block.one