LONDON (Bywire News) - While much of the focus has been on the performance of bitcoin this year, EOS has been quietly making impressive strides of its own. Over the course of 2021, its price has rocketed by almost 250%. Could there be more to come?
EOS made headlines in 2018 when its parent company raised a record $4bn through an ICO to create the EOSIO software. Since then it has been trying to establish itself as one of the main altcoins to watch. However, while it’s always had promise it has really come into its own this year. In the first quarter of the year, its price nearly tripled to a peak of around $8.666. Since then it has slipped back to $5.92 but remains in a strong position for the rest of the year.
Three big pieces of news have pumped up its price:
- The announcement of a collaboration with Google: Google cloud announced that it would collaborate to advance the integration of cloud computing with distributed ledger technology.
- The new power-up model: Designed to improve resource allocation, a consensus was reached on their new power-up model in January.
- The new testnet: Block.one announced the new testnet in 2020.
Under their partnership with Google, the IT giant will become a block producer and will seek ways for its open-source community of developers to engage with EOS. Welcoming the move Block.one said in a statement.
“Block producers are a core component of the EOS network; attracting a block producer candidate of Google Cloud’s calibre marks a milestone for the network.”
The new power-up model, meanwhile, gives users the chance to pay a small fee to power up their account for 24 hours or deposit their unused tokens to receive a percentage of the power up fees generated by the EOSIO public blockchain. This is their answer to the high cost of transaction fees which has been one of the major things pulling back on Ethereum.
The announcement of the new testnet, meanwhile, was seen as another major step forward. Features include a multi-node distributed network one-click blockchain account creation, an EOSIO explorer and a snapshot for quick syncing of testnet nodes for higher uptime.
These additions have served as rocket fuel for EOSIO over the previous few months and helped it overcome a difficult start to the year which included the departure of Block.one’s CTO Dan Larimer. They have helped give the platform extra credibility and added momentum for the future.
In to the future
Some of that rocket fuel dissipated over the past week with the price settling back down to between $5 and $6 but there is more to come. With revelations of a proposed new stake-based voting rewards programme, Ethereum aims to bring the interests of network operators and token holders together. The analysis makes a number of recommendations including:
Stake-based voting and rewards mechanisms should have their initial parameters set to ensure the system inflation stays between 1.2% and 3.8% per year and that it might need to be adjusted over time. Block producers should receive inflationary rewards of at least 1.2% of the total EOS supply annually and that any inflation which is not given to block producers should be distributed to token holders.
Momentum is building. New protocols, new partners and big-name backers are creating a buzz about EOS which is becoming difficult to ignore.
(Written by Tom Cropper, edited by Klaudia Fior)