EOS had one of the most successful ICOs in the short history of crypto raising $4 billion in 2 years.
The blockchain platform was launched as a competitor to Ethereum. The major difference is that EOS uses a DPoS consensus mechanism, different from Ethereum’s PoW and NEO’s PoS.
The EOS mainnet launched in 2018 and the platform is now one of the top blockchain dapp platforms in the industry. According to dappradar, the platform currently has 347 dapps, and 14 of them record over 1,000 daily users.
So far in 2019, there are 2 partnerships that are keeping EOS competitive with other blockchains: Tapatalk and Wanchain.
EOS Overview
EOS started out with the hype of becoming the “Ethereum Killer.” The goal of the project is to create the most powerful infrastructure for dapps. The project was founded and led by Daniel Larimer. Before EOS, he was involved in two blockchain projects, Steem and BitShares.
The EOS platform was intended to be a platform that prioritizes speed, with the ultimate goal of achieving speeds of up to a million transactions per second and beyond.
EOS uses the Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism where token holders casts votes to elect block producers. In this model, the votes are weighed by voter’s stakes. The platform uses the WASM Virtual Machine to achieve better speed and performance.
EOS gradually built momentum from their mainnet launch in June 2018, and the project recorded 260 dapps on its platform in 7 months.
However, the platform has only managed to record thousands of transactions per second at certain times. Other studies have revealed that EOS maxes out at 250 transactions per second.
The platform also became subject to a controversy as it is said to be not truly decentralized because confirmed transactions on the blockchain can be reversed by arbitrators based on the EOS governance model. Decentralization is one of the core principles of the crypto world, and hence the centralization controversy has made some in the crypto community feel unfavorable towards EOS.
Despite all this, EOS is consistently among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. The platform also continues to add more dapps to its platform and has about 45 dapps that record over 1,000 daily transactions.
EOS had an eventful year in 2018 which included the mainnet launch, establishment of the EOS Alliance, and the milestone of 100 dapps in 4 months.
EOS Q1 2019 Partnerships
Even though EOS is more focused on luring developers and entrepreneurs to create new dapps, the blockchain platform is also drawing in existing companies and project for partnerships.
Here, we take a look at 2 notable partnerships made thus far in 2019.
Tapatalk
Tapatalk is a leading mobile forum app home to over 300 million users in 186 countries.
The platform announced in February that its Gold Point reward system will be powered by the EOS blockchain. The purpose is to incentivize and monetize member engagement across the various forums.
Gold Point was first introduced by Tapatalk in 2017. It has since grown to become a credible source of revenue for forum administrators and moderators.
Putting it on the blockchain makes it more transparent as members can use Gold Points to pay for digital goods, remove ads and donate to forum administrators.
Tapatalk now has a Gold Point wallet built on the EOS blockchain which encourages microtransactions because of the absence of fees.
This partnership introduces EOS to Tapatalk’s 300 million user base and could be a way for the project to increase adoption.
Wanchain
Wanchain is a blockchain project that focuses on interoperability. This simply means the ability of separate blockchains to interact with each other.
Wanchain began implementation of interoperability and cross-chain functions with the Bitcoin blockchain. It then proceeded with implementation on the Ethereum blockchain.
Wanchain has set its sight on EOS as the next blockchain to be enabled for interoperability. The integration with EOS is expected to take place sometime in Q2 2019. This integration will enable EOS to interact with other communities in the blockchain world.
This interoperability function gives the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities access to use EOS blockchain, which may result in more users for EOS.
Other Notable Developments
Late in December 2018, Huobi Pool announced plans to launch a crypto exchange based on EOS. This exchange is expected to launch before the end of Q1 2019. This puts EOS in an advantageous position and could further increase its relevance in the crypto space.
