EOS Community Comes Together To Take Control Back From Block.one
In a prime example of community power taking control in the world of crypto the EOS network has voted to suspend paying Block.one 67 million EOS (worth $250 million) over the next few years. According to the EOS community, this is because Block.one is no longer acting in the best interests of the EOS network. Block.one would have received $100 million in EOS in exchange for supporting the EOS blockchain over ten years, accounting for around 10% of the total EOS supply.
The payment suspension was initiated jointly by the EOS Network Foundation (ENF), a group of EOS network miners and members who dediced to unilaterally cease payment to Block.one. Yves La Rose, appointed as leader of the ENF earlier this year, confirmed: “Through a super majority consensus, the EOS network has taken its future in its own hands by voting to fire Block.one and stop vesting tokens to them. This begins a new era for EOS and highlights the power of the blockchain to enable a community to stand up against corporate interests that don’t align with theirs.”
What happened between EOS and Block.one?
In 2018, Block.one launched the EOS blockchain, a delegated proof-of-stake network run by the top 21 miners, who in turn are voted in by token holders. Which means that even though these 21 block miners have shared authority over the network, token holders may vote to remove them if they so wish.
The dispute between the two parties, EOS and Block.one, which came to a head last month is rooted in a series of disappointing use cases provided by Block.one. In November, after La Rose made a speech outlining his plans, Block.one announced on November 8 that it would transfer 45 million EOS to Helios, a new fund set up by Brock Pierce to serve the EOS community. These EOS will be used to establish EOS venture capital funds, produce institutional-level EOS financial products, and build developer infrastructure. Simply put, Block.one hoped that by making this move, they would empower EOS.
What’s intriguing is the connection between Block.one and Helios. Brock Pierce, the founder of Helios, is also the founder of the stable coin Tether and the co-founder of Block.one. As the news of Block.one’s transfer of 45 million EOS to Helios spread, many thought that Block.one’s move was suspected of selling EOS, and then someone broke the news that Helios had sold around eight million EOS. As reported in The Block, eight million of the tokens were already vested and controlled by Block.one while 37 million are still vesting
This behavior sparked outrage in the EOS community.
They believed that any EOS that was not released by Block.one should be returned to the community. As a result, the EOS Foundation began negotiating with Block.one. The two parties considered numerous ideas but were unable to come to an agreement. Therefore, the news of the EOS community voting to withhold funds might certainly be interpreted as a response to the failure of the two parties’ negotiations. And for the time being, it is unclear whether there will be another round of negotiations.
EOS takes the future into its own hands
Stopping the EOS release does not result in the account being frozen. The account is still owned by Block.one, but it can no longer release EOS. On the day the EOS community proposal was launched, seven master nodes agreed to it, and six more master nodes and five backup nodes agreed within five days. The proposal will be executed if 15 master nodes agree to it, according to EOS network rules. Following that, the ENF claimed that Block.one was no longer acting in the best interests of the network and that it was attempting to obtain the EOS network’s intellectual property rights through illegal means. The foundation also met with EOS block producers and convinced them to stop paying Block.one. On December 8, the top 25 EOS block producers agreed to halt the issuance of 67 million EOS worth $250 million.
The EOS network aspires to take control of the future by gaining the support of the vast majority of members. This marks the beginning of a new era for EOS and demonstrates the power of the blockchain community. This set of measures enabled the EOS community to confront behaviors that were incompatible with its development goals.
BigONE believes that EOS has begun to decline following a brief period of growth in 2018. There are numerous reasons why EOS is disappointing, including issues such as its interactive experience and user thresholds, but Block.one, the parent company behind EOS, has disappointed investors the most. Some community members claim that EOS is currently in a state similar to self-exile, and that this is all down to Block.one.
The current controversy indicates that EOS is undergoing a transformation. The EOS community has put itself in a position to be able to get rid of Block.one, indicating that a hard fork is imminent. The existence of Block.one will continue to put pressure on EOS until this formal transformation occurs.
With the start of EOS’s rejection of Block.one, EOS is gradually becoming what its community desires. During a live broadcast a few days ago, the EOS Foundation stated that EOS will support the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) in the coming months. This could be one of the most effective ways to improve the ecosystem balance. After all, Ethereum’s dominant ecosystem status cannot be questioned. The addition of EVM has the potential to attract many developers and users. If this results in EOS regaining popularity, the balance of power in the cryptocurrency market will shift once more.
