EOS – The Most Successful ICO in History
When developers imagine launching an ICO, they’re hoping to attract a slew of investors to purchase the offering. In September of 2017, the Great Bitcoin Bubble was starting to take off to the moon, and everyone wanted a piece of the next hot ICO. With most ICOs ending up in million-dollar funding rounds, the industry was primed and ready for the next financial shock and awe event.
In September 2017, EOS found itself in the middle of the largest and most successful ICO of all time. Market conditions conflagrated into a perfect storm that resulted in the firm raising a colossal $4.1-billion in its ICO. That’s the largest ICO in history, launching the EOS team into superstardom.
In the days leading up to the ICO event, the marketing around the token was tremendous. Celebrities and sports stars were endorsing the ICO, attracting plenty of attention to the EOS token.
However, even though EOS has the biggest ICO in history, it’s not without its problems. Most of the shares that govern the blockchain are in the hands of Chinese investors. Global investors are worried about how that will affect the future of the coin.
Block.One, the blockchain company behind EOS, is the largest holder of tokens. Some critics state that the company could annex governance on the blockchain if it felt the need to do so, but it doesn’t want to stir the pot right now.
What is EOS? – The Team Behind EOS
EOS was the brainchild of Dan Larimer, the creator, and founder of other established platforms like Steem and Bitshares.
The whitepaper published in 2017 describes the EOSIO platform developed by the Blockchain company, Block.one. The whitepaper had an official release as an open-source code in June 2018. In the initial ICO, block.one released 1-billion EOS ERC-20 tokens, allowing anyone to use the EOS blockchain after the release of the software.
Brendan Blumer, the CEO of Block.one stated that the company would continue to support the EOSIO blockchain. He also went on to say that they had over $1-billion in secured funding from the token sale, with over $4-billion raised during the ICO period.
The ICO caught the attention of the financial regulatory authorities. As a result of the size of the ICO, the SEC came down heavily on the ICO sector, banning new ICOs while launching an investigation into the EOS ICO.
In September 2019, the CEO of block.one agreed on a settlement with the SEC on charges relating to the unregistered ICO. The penalty imposed by the law was a paltry $24-million. The terms of the settlement agreement didn’t require block.one to make restitution, register tokens, or provide any disqualifications.
How Does It Work?
The EOS platform is a decentralized blockchain technology designed to support dapps – decentralized apps. The core functionality of the platform is similar to Ethereum, and EOS promises to be the next generation of the Ethereum blockchain.
Where Ethereum fails is in its ability to process transactions. Processing ties are slow, and it slows down the growth of the whole sector. The goal of EOS is to build a blockchain that offers lightning-fast transaction times.
With EOS, the block producers play the role of miners, similarly producing blocks to the Ethereum protocol. However, when the producers produce blocks, they get payment from the EOS blockchain, removing the fees from the user.
As a result, the EOS blockchain has a built-in inflation adjustment rate, which maintains the value of the currency in the system. The EOS blockchain produces two new blocks every second, and only one block producer has the guarantee of producing the block at any given time.
To maintain the efficiency of the network, those producers that don’t produce blocks after a set period, removing them from the system.
What are the Features of EOS?
The EOS platform relies on two key elements; EOS.IO and EOS tokens. EOS.IO is like the operating system on your computer, controlling the blockchain for EOS tokens. The blockchain architecture enables horizontal and vertical scaling of the decentralized application.
The EOS token acts as the official cryptocurrency of the EOS blockchain. To use network resources and build dapps, the user must hold EOS. Those token holders that are not running dapps may donate their bandwidth to others.
What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of EOS?
As with all cryptocurrencies, there are pros and cons involved with owning, holding, or trading EOS tokens. Here are our top drawbacks and advantages of using the EOS token.
How do I Buy EOS? – What are the Recommended Exchanges?
EOS tokens are available for purchase on most exchanges. It’s challenging to find it on the regulated platforms, but some of them do offer EOS markets. However, if you want the best trading experience, then we recommend you go to an unregulated exchange.
Unregulated exchanges don’t operate under any financial regulatory body. Therefore, you have more risk when trading on these platforms. However, many of them have been operating for years now, and although they might experience hiccups from time to time, they are still in business.
Purchasing your EOS tokens through an unregulated exchange means that you’ll probably have to purchase your EOS using other forms of crypto or using your credit card. We recommend exchanges like Binance for all non-US passport holders. If you’re a US passport holder, then you’ll have to go with an exchange like Kraken.
