What is EOS - Simple Explanation for Beginners

EOS: General Description

EOS.IO is a platform that allows its users to develop, host and run decentralized applications (DApps) with the help of groundbreaking horizontally scalable architecture. It functions as a blockchain-based operating system for app development (similarly to such heavyweights as Play Store and App Store). Among EOS’s main features one can point out the scheduling of DApps on various CPU cores as well as the creation of accounts, databases and real-time communication. The EOS network is able to achieve an incredibly fast speed of transaction processing: it takes a single second to scale millions of transactions because of the innovative DPoS algorithm. Moreover, users are not charged any fees (high transaction fees are considered to be one of the major Bitcoin’s drawbacks).

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Main Features of EOS

EOS poses as a combination of Bitcoin’s highly secure blockchain and Ethereum’s unique system of smart contracts that uses a special cryptographic code for enforcing a relationship between parties. Dan Larrimer, the creator of EOS, also applied some of the features from his previous projects such as Bitshares and Steem:

• delegated PoS algorithm;
• parallel processing that makes it possible to conduct over 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) and functions similarly to multithreading;
• 2 degrees of separation;
• hierarchical authority system.

The EOS network also employs Tezos’s l on-chain governance mechanisms while Bitcoin, for example, has off-chain governance. The system has its own ratified constitution that can be consensually amended by the users. Every single transaction is governed by the EOS constitution thorough a P2P User License Agreement (ULA).

One of the key innovations of the EOS network is the aforementioned operating system with in-built code framework that allows developers to create original applications with less effort. Furthermore, parallel processing ensures that the global system is not disrupted while modifying separate apps. That basically means that numerous hard forking cannot affect EOS. This feature is truly groundbreaking, and no other system can offer it.

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It is also worth mentioning the most important advantages of the EOS network:

1. The inflation rate cannot exceed 5% in a single year. The ongoing blockchain emission of EOS tokens helps to fund the entire system. Again, this is fundamentally different from the Ethereum blockchain where every transaction is paid with gas. When it comes to EOS, the automatic emission is capable of permanently providing funding for the whole project.
2. Free transactions. As mentioned above, all transactions are completely free which makes the currency more accessible for ordinary users, not just for crypto investors. You do not have to obtain any tokens in order to use EOS-based games or apps.
3. The system swiftly responds to the needs of app developers because of its extremely high TPS rate. Furthermore, Dan Larimer is currently working on the implementation of sub-second latency in the EOS blockchain. That would make the fastest blockchain on the market even more efficient.
4. Complicated addressed are simply replaces with usernames.
5. Consensus mechanism replaces hard forking if there is a need to fix the account’s code. Thus, this helps to avoid creating numerous chains that are competing with each other.
6. Users can communicate with each other in real time instead of relying on a timer because of asynchronous smart contracts. It eliminates any delays that are typical for sequential transaction processing.
7. EOS has recently adopted WebAssembly (WASM) as its main programming language in order to achieve a higher TPS rate.