EOS Blockchain: Launched But Not Live

By Dmitriy

Approaching a week after the official initial launch of the EOSIO in an unorthodox, distributed process, the EOS blockchain isn’t live yet. After raising a reported $4 billion over the last year to create the software necessary to launch the blockchain, Block.one is leaving it to its community to actually get it off the ground.

But so far, the software appears to be gradually progressing towards the goal, struggling against all kinds of issues.

The company released version 1.0.0 of the EOS software on Saturday and an update to the code (version 1.0.1) has already been published, which was described as preventing a “potential crash” in the update notes, along with other minor issues by Block.one CTO Daniel Larimer.

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.

“I’ve been part of calls of 60 to 90 people every day,” Marc-Antoine Ross, the CEO of EOS Canada said, adding: “What I think is important is we all published agreement to launch one chain.”

Another 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.

A 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 sequential post, Ghostbusters described their approach as “security first”.

Unity prevailed eventually as Ross stated, “We’ve opened our hand to the Ghostbusters to make sure we have one strong network.”

As Siddharth Kalla of the Turing Advisory Group said:

“The real test of whether one should be alarmed or not would come once the network is live and running. The human side of security, voting, economic incentives, etc, are much harder to test than bugs in the code during the testing phase.”

Ross would not commit to any kind of timeline for EOS to go live.