A Guide to Understanding EOS in Simple English

EOS is perhaps the best performing and most-trending cryptocurrency in the market right now. In the year-to-date period, EOS’ market performance has shown gains of 41% even though the general cryptocurrency market is down 45% in terms of market cap. If you play around cryptocurrency or blockchain circles, you’ve most likely heard about EOS and how it is a potential Ethereum killer.

Above – Image Source: busy.org

However, it is not exactly easy for non-techie folks to really understand what the EOS blockchain represents and how it works. Even EOS has a hard time articulating the idea of its blockchain in simple English – a part of its FAQ says “we believe that EOS means different things to different people. We have received numerous amazing interpretations of what EOS stands for or what it should stand for so we have decided not to formally define it ourselves.”

It might be somewhat difficult for everyday people who are not necessarily crypto geeks to understand what make the EOS blockchain so special. This piece seeks to bridge the information gap by providing you with a simplified overview of the EOS blockchain technology.

First, the basics

The EOS project is an ambitious plan to build a decentralized network capable of processing millions of transactions per second. The Bitcoin blockchain current processes about 7 transactions per second and Ethereum processes around 23 transactions per second. Hence, a network that can process millions on transactions per second could ready blockchain technology for mass-market adoption. EOS is running a year-long ICO that started on June 26, 2017 and it has already raised more than $i billion through its token sale. We also know that Dan Larimer, the brain behind Steem and BitShares is one of the key people working on the EOS blockchain system.

Now the tech

EOS is simply trying to build a decentralized blockchain on which users can build smart contracts and
decentralized apps (DApps) while processing millions of transactions in an efficiently fast pace and without transaction costs. The EOS blockchain will essentially function like an operating system such
as Windows or Android, and people can them build DApps in much the same way that developers
create mobile apps on Android.

However, the idea of decentralized apps on the EOS blockchain is that such apps won’t be owned/controlled by any single individual. A decentralized version of Twitter for instance won’t be under the control of Jack Dorsey and his team, smart contracts will monitor tweets to deal with hate speech, explicit, and gory images, and you won’t have to worry about the possibility of someone hacking your account and tweeting things that would make your great-grandmother cringe in her grave.

EOS will also solve the scalability problem that has kept blockchain technology from getting mass-market adoption. Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency in the markets; but when a wave of mass-market adoption hit the cryptocurrency last year – the network became paralyzed and as much as 200,000 transactions were stuck in limbo as unconfirmed transactions. Bitcoin’s 7 transactions per second is negligible relative to VISA’s 24,000 transactions per second.

Twitter for instance handles 6,000 tweets per second; hence, a blockchain platform that wants to host Twitter and hundreds of other similar applications must be able to process millions of transactions per second. EOS says it could potentially handle millions of transactions per second and that is the basis of its hype as a tool for enhancing the mass market adoption of blockchain technology.

What does the future hold?

It is important to note that EOS is still in development and much of the hype surrounding the cryptocurrency is a function of hope. However, the success of the EOS project is contingent on the
ability of the management team to execute on their lofty ideas and deliver on their promise.
Interestingly, the market seems to be confident that Block.one and Dan Larimer will deliver on their
promise and EOS is cemented its position as the fifth biggest cryptocurrency by market cap even
before it ends it ICO. The launch of the mainnet next month will be the first test on how well EOS can
execute its ideas.

by – Nextbigfuture.com
Sources – NewsBtc.com, internetlivestats, Eos.io, busy.org