Why EOS

Choosing the right platform, EOS overview.

Generally speaking, there are two extremes in public blockchain technology:

1. using a proof of work (PoW) chain that offers immutability and censorship resistance, but you pay for that with fees for every transaction.

2. using federation/DPOS/masternodes that offers speed with low associated cost.

Most tokens on these platforms have a centralized team behind them, which means that if their token contract is compromised, they should be able to roll it back. Alternatively, this team could just issue a new contract taking into consideration factors like pre-hack balances.

Having a token that is solidified with PoW presents additional liability if something goes wrong. This is not a feature that a startup raising capital should go for.. This option should only be considered once the code has been tested over time.

Ethereum sits in a thankless middle. It does not allow rolling back your app, since projects don't really control their smart contract. Furthermore, users still need to compete for limited block space and bid with gas or often just wait their turn (up to a day). For many token issuers that is just not needed.

The token issuer requires just enough decentralization for the market to perceive it as decentralized and it's history to be independently verifiable (many/enough nodes that check it). Of course, they also need tokens to be easily listed on the exchanges - once the platform is added, the addition of further tokens should not require significant effort.

EOS will offer "shards" (they call it blockchain apps), which users would be able to utilise on their partitioned network - their nodes can discard all other messages, making them as light as the chain is designed to be. A lightly designed blockchain app would have the ability to spread more nodes since it's easy enough to verify, even if the entire EOS network gets "bloated".

Instead of transaction fees, EOS chooses a smarter way to charge users. Every blockchain app (shard) must deposit coins for their users. Practically, 1% of locked coins means that users of this app can get 1% of all bandwidth of block producers... and until your app only uses 1% of the whole EOS ecosystem, all transactions are free for end-users.

That way new users don't need to pay for anything. However, the blockchain app developer still has to mind the resources, or else the requirement to buy more and more EOS tokens to stake would ‘kill’ his blockchain app’.

Block-producers dilute this stake with up to 5% per year inflation, to pay for investment into additional bandwidth, space or execution/verification CPU power. This presents one potential problem: whenever block-producers upgrade their equipment, the number of tokens that the blockchain app requires, falls. This is because those EOS tokens are no longer needed since people may sell them on an open market and crash the price.

Since token holders vote for block-producers, they might start voting for those who don't want to upgrade in order to keep the staking requirements high. It would be interesting to see how the tension that would arise due to, one the one hand, helping app developers with adoption and, on the other hand, the high token price would play out.

Application developers will need to pay for the cost of EOS user accounts. Let's hope the price for them won't skyrocket; allowing competition to spam apps with fake accounts, thereby draining the funding for the blockchain app and it's legitimate users.

Another strength of EOS is its use of WebAssembly instead of Solidity which ensures C++ toolchain compatibility.

In addition to that, Iryo would use the public EOS network to keep access control timestamped and synced on all nodes. Iryo deems the importance of access control messages and history logs to be propagated near real-time in emergency situations as essential. Right now, this cannot be achieved/guaranteed on a network like Ethereum or Bitcoin.