Like Ethereum, EOS strives to create and distribute decentralised apps using a blockchain-based system. At the same time, however, it wants to improve Ethereum by, firstly, making it easier to understand and more accessible to a wider group of users and, secondly, by making it faster, cheaper and easier to manage. This page will explain this further.
EOS (EOS) Chart
[coin-chart symbol=”EOS” theme=”dark”]
Decentralised operating system
One key feature of EOS is that, as opposed to Ethereum, users do not necessarily need advanced coding knowledge in order to create their own applications on the platform. Instead, the system has an inbuilt operating system of specific routines and commands to do things with the blockchain, such as the programming of smart contracts, which is made easier in this way. This also means small bugs can easily be avoided or fixed.
Because this works in a multithreaded way, such blockchain commands can also be carried out in parallel, which makes the system far faster. Whereas Bitcoin can take up to thirty minutes to verify commands on the blockchain, EOS strives to do this in under two seconds.
Parallel processing
Another improvement carried out by EOS is connected to parallel processing on a wider scale: just like multiple commands can be verified simultaneously on the blockchain, so applications can also each be frozen separately by their developers, according to the rules which they themselves have programmed into their applications. They are therefore able to create applications that are uneditable even by themselves if they wish, or they can include space for future updates.
This also means the system is upgradeable without use of a hard fork, which was the only solution during the TheDAO crisis in Ethereum in 2016. At this point, due to hacking issues, the entire system was split into two because it could not easily be upgraded and the rules changed; since EOS can freeze part of its infrastructure while allowing other parts to run on, this would never happen within EOS.
EOS tokens: distribution
Another major difference between EOS and Ethereum is the way the native currency of the EOS system, the EOS, works.
EOS cannot be mined, but could be acquired from the developers during the so-called distribution period, which spanned 341 days. One billion EOS tokens were distributed over the course of this time, with 100 million of these preserved for use by block.one, who are the developers of the system.
Of the other 900 million tokens, 200 million were distributed during the so-called “first period”, i. e. the five days of the distribution period, and the remaining 700 million were split evenly into 350 consecutive 23-hour periods selling 2 million tokens each, starting on 1 July 2017. This system was developed to allow the widest possible group of people access to EOS tokens.
EOS tokens: use
As opposed to what happens within Ethereum, these tokens cannot be used by people who simply wish to use applications within the EOS system. On this level, EOS is 100% free, which has the great advantage that it has the potential of attracting a wider range of users to the system.
EOS tokens are only used by developers, who actually wish to make decentralised apps, and even these do not need a running supply of the currency. They can simply buy whatever amount of EOS they need to establish the apps they wish to make and distribute, and these EOS then function as fuel for these apps in perpetuity. This makes the EOS system extremely attractive to developers, as well.