Claire HunteBitcoin continues to hit stratospheric levels in price and riding along on its coat tails are alternative coin offerings. The latest to come to the attention of mainstreamers is EOS which is offered by a company called block.one and according to the WSJ has raised $700m. Time to understand what EOS is about.
What is EOS? It's similar but different
EOS, is another coin offering similar to bitcoin but slightly different in that EOS is a token and not a coin. There is a fluidity to the terms and people are using them interchangeably. However, there is a difference in that units of block chain called a “coin” function as a means of payment and acts like money while a token is intending to go beyond that and adds more value.
Chronobank.io describes it thus: “Tokens offer functionality over and above that of digital cash. They may deliver value to investors, beyond speculative returns; this is one of the purposes of ChronoBank’s TIME token. That can occur in a variety of ways, though typically through buybacks (since dividend payments entail regulatory problems). They may be used to hold votes by the community on key business decisions, or even technical changes to the platform.”
Great, so how does it work again?
It's blockchain and for the totally ignorant about what that is I've found some help. Don't be ashamed there are many who only have a single virtual clue about what it means. But there isn't the space here to delve. The main benefit of this technology is its scalabilty meant to support thousands of commercial-scale decentralised applications.
Know that with EOS.io, it's a system that is blockchain based and it's offering is meant be almost revolutionary as Bitcoin exchange guide says its software aims to be "the most powerful" infrastructure for decentralised applications. EOS wants blockchain to be widely used and for that to happen it likely needs to be free whereas other blockchains charge heavy fees.
Block.one says: "The resulting technology is a blockchain architecture that scales to millions of transactions per second, eliminates user fees, and allows for quick and easy deployment of decentralised applications."
Who heads it?
This is the Block.one company that is headed by Brendan Blumer as CEO and Daniel Larimer known for creating BitShares is CTO.
What is EOS market capitalisation?
EOS.io tokens were launched in June this year and according to Coinmarketcap.com its at the top of the charts for token by cap size of $5bn. It has seen a surge of 24.19% to $10.56 on 19 December at 14:45 GMT. It's among the top 20 cryptocurrencies.
What are people saying?
"Block.one’s EOS deal is now about three times as large as the next biggest coin offering. It plans to keep raising money until next June and is on pace to raise “well north of” $1bn" Wall Street Journal
"It is hard to believe that anyone commits securities fraud anymore. Right now you can design an electronic token, say in big bold letters that the token is utterly useless, and raise $700m selling it to people who "don't think it's fair reading into that language too tightly." Why bother to scam anyone? Bloomberg opinion piece