LONDON (Bywire News) - As Yves la Rose shared his latest update on the progress with the EOS Network Foundation (ENF), he did so with a real sense of optimism. The week saw a string of announcements including the third and fourth waves of recognition grants, and the launch of a new crowdfunding platform on EOS. Its price is rising begging the question: is EOS the most undervalued cryptocurrency on the market and where will it go from here?
Throughout much of the last few years, the story of EOS seems to have been of massive potential, but disappointing performance. Loved by developers for its speed and versatility, it’s faster and greener than Ethereum.
With all that going for it, the blockchain’s poor performance surprised many. The challenge facing Yves la Rose and the ENF is to turn the page and resurrect the blockchain’s faltering reputation.
Breaking away from B1
The first step in doing that, it seems has been to own up to mistakes and differentiate itself from B1. This he did in a remarkably frank virtual meeting with Chinese media and opinion leaders.
“EOS is now in a state where regardless of what it does it is weighed down by the failed commitments and the failures of B1,” he said. “It’s apparent that B1 is pretending it can add value to EOS and dangles this pretence as a means to quell any potential uprising. In reality, it has largely moved away from wanting to contribute, and their EOS is more of a liability than it is an asset.”
His aim now, with the EOS Network Foundation, is to rebuild “a vision which has been lost over the past couple of years,” and that means a future which forks away from B1.
The early signs are good. There has been a flurry of media attention in recent weeks and, while it has not been universally positive, it’s a whole lot better than it has been in the past. Most importantly of all, though, two of the themes emerging play right into his narrative: firstly that EOS is far from dead, and secondly that EOS is different from B1.
Chatter within the community on social media is more hopeful than it’s been for a long time. This has been enough to generate some momentum on the market. In the space of a few days this week, it rose from $4.325 to $5.3529 (down to $4.87 at time of publication). Those who bought in at the beginning of 2020 when the price was around $1.8 will be feeling much better about life than they were a short time ago.
La Rose is looking to create a new story for EOS. From the very beginning, the involvement of B1 was controversial. The broken promises, accusations of fraud and lack of support, sowed distrust throughout the ecosystem. The network’s delegated proof of stake model which concentrated power in 21 block producers, brought elements of over decentralisation in an ecosystem which was about decentralisation. This led to inertia.
All of that creates baggage which continues to hinder EOS. It’s a narrative which needs to change. EOS, he feels, needs a new public face and a new voice. In doing so, he risks kicking off a power struggle. On the one side is La Rose and the ENF looking to put influence in the hands of the community and the token holders; on the other is B1.
New funding and new board members
In this ‘new era’ for EOS, the ENF has been making much of the running. Earlier this week, he announced the third wave of the recognition grants focusing on social and gaming. Recipients include the likes of social application, Challenge DAC, Crypto Dynasty, a pay to earn RPG and PvP trading game on EOS and Ethereum and Liquiid, a development company specialising in creating games on EOS and Ethereum.
The ENF has now announced a fourth wave focusing on tooling which includes:
- Sentnl : A blockchain auditing firm specializing in penetration testing, wallet security audits, and smart contract audits for EOSIO blockchains.
- Slowmist : A blockchain security company offering solutions that include security audit, threat intelligence (BTI), bug bounty, defence deployment, security consultancy, and other services for EOSIO projects.
- Aloha EOS Tools : Developers of useful tooling for visualising on-chain data such as block producer performance and reliability metrics.
- Jungle Testnet: Initiated by CryptoLions, Jungle has served as a sandbox for many development teams and EOS Block Producers since the birth of EOSIO.
- EOS Powerup: EOS Powerup offers a frontend, Discord and Telegram bots for making it simple to manage user resources under the new resource model.
- EOS Authority Dashboard: One of the most robust and comprehensive explorers for the EOS ecosystem that offers unique features such as account alert notifications and in-depth on-chain analysis tools.
- EOS Studio: Graphic IDE for developing decentralized applications (dApps) on the EOSIO blockchain.
The ENF has added Damian Byon, former CCO of ITAM games and Korean block producer AcroEOS as the seventh board member in addition to the existing six genesis members. Their full board now comprises:
- Aaron Cox, founder of Greymass
- Dafeng Guo, founder of EOS Asia and Strikingly
- Fu Pan, founder and CEO of TockenPocket
- Peter Watt, Newdex Project Leader
- Van Kai, iconic founder and leader of the EOS Cannon community
- Wen Huaqiang, veteran developer and initiator of CryptoKylin
- Damian Byon, former CCO of ITAM Games and AcroEOS
Pomelo gets going
EOS’ own crowdfunding platform Pomelo is also up and running with the first round launching on November the 7th and running until the end of the month. This is the chance for people to support the projects which benefit the wider EOS community with funds matched from a pool of $500,000 provided by the ENF.
“Now, anyone in the EOS community is able to request funding for any kind of public goods including marketing, open source code, community building, education, hosting events, hackathons, and other value adds for EOS,” writes La Rose in his latest update.
In a further break from the past, the ENF has also announced that it has migrated its community from Telegram onto Discord. For years, the EOS community has been gathered on Telegram. Now, the ENF’s existing Telegram Channel has been converted into read-only with everyone being invited to join their Discord Server.
A new narrative for a new future
Moving to the future, the ENF is looking to harness the power of the community to move the community forward. $1million is going into working groups consisting of experts and leaders within the EOS ecosystem to design roadmaps to solve many of the most pressing challenges EOS is currently facing.
This latest update from La Rose, is a statement of intent. So far he has done enough to encourage the community to give EOS another chance. While it’s still a long way from being the top ten cryptocurrency it once was, its price is heading in the right direction. The past struggles with Block.one, accusations of fraud and distrust are being portrayed as testing. The product which emerges will be fitter and stronger.
There will be bumps in the road. EOS is playing catchup. Rival blockchains have learned from their mistakes and have been powering ahead. Even so, in pure technology terms, none of them can outmatch EOS. In October it was once again named best blockchain around by the China Centre for Information Industry Development. Everything which drew developers to it – and which those who have remained loyal continue to love, remains. That – coupled with the new direction hyped by La Rose – means EOS could indeed be the most undervalued blockchain on the market.
(Writing by Tom Cropper, editing by Michael O'Sullivan)