CWC Newsletter #27 (May 18, 2020)
By Taylor Ryker, Analyst
Top 10 Headlines of the Week for EOSIO
Last week saw some great announcements in the EOSIO space, with developments in decentralized finance, blockchain gaming, venture funding, user experience, and the EOS mainnet. However, the class-action lawsuit against Block.one and it's leadership is still ongoing.
Below are the top 10 headlines of the past week for EOSIO:
1. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin Respects EOS and Governance Issue
2. Developments of EOSIO's Decentralized Finance
3. Developments within EOSIO Blockchain Gaming Scene
4. Block.one's Upcoming Vote and Ongoing EOSIO Challenge
5. Tools Launched for Better EOSIO User Experience
6. EOSIO Venture Funding Announcements
7. EOS Mainnet Upgrade Proposal
8. Progress of Voice
9. Class-action Lawsuit against Block.one and Leadership
10. Deadline to Claim KROWN tokens
1. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin Respects EOS and Governance Issue
Over the weekend, Vitalik was thinking out loud on twitter about his views on the tradeoffs of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Vitalik posited that "If I were designing a new chain to live alongside bitcoin and ethereum, I would take 'all' the political tradeoffs that BTC and ETH aren't willing to take: On-chain governance with Quadratic Voting, On-chain oracles for not just prices but arbitrary events, and all the built-in cryptographic operations."
Many of the responses to Vitalik were asking if he was suggesting that EOS is the basis of the design of his proposed new chain. In response, Vitalik tweeted: "This is why I actually have some respect for EOS and company. I 'disagree' with DPoS but at least they're 'trying' to develop a cohesive and principled alternative niche."
Also, Vitalik voiced his opinion of Block.one CTO Dan Larimer: "I feel like Dan is a genuine economic/technical thinker." And that Vitalik did not have the positive feelings towards Larimer's Block.one colleagues: "Much of his 'business-side' entourage are snakes. I have sympathy for the former side of the project and not the latter side."
Vitalik is saying that although governance on blockchain is a difficult task, he admires the fact that Block.one is creating EOSIO software that attempts to address the issue. In showcasing the power of EOSIO in adopting flexible governance structures, Jack and the Blockstack shared code to do that: "#EOSIO is governance agnostic and uses a flexible aBFT consensus algorithm. I created a Proof of Authority (PoA), Proof of Stake (PoS), Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), and democratic consensus model for eosio without changing the protocol here. EOSIO is not only DPoS! It is programmable on-chain consensus."
2. Developments of EOSIO's Decentralized Finance
It seems like every week there are new developments and announcements that concern the growing space of decentralized finance (defi) in the EOSIO ecosystem. The past couple weeks was no different and it saw deWeb announce new updates and future features, Nexo incorporate the EOS token into their crypto credit lines, and stablecoin Vigor celebrated it's 1-year launch anniversary. Last week saw announcements from WAX, the DAPP Network, and Genpool.io that allowed users to profit from Non-Fungible Tokens to Proxy Voting Rewards.
deWeb is a portal where anyone can create their own token with liquidity and usage. This past week saw deWeb announce an inclusion of a new feature of stake-weighted polls which will allow token holders to have more of a voice in relation to their stake size. Some needed upcoming features include the ability for token burns, social sign-ins, polling, fiat on/off ramps, beneficiary tokens, and discussion boards. EOSUSA, an EOSIO Block Producer, announced that they are participating in hosting deWeb services.
Nexo, a leading centralized lending/interest platform, announced that they would allow EOS as a legitimate form of capital to repay loans on its Instant Crypto Credit Lines. Though some applications in Ethereum's defi sector were exploited, the move by Nexo to include EOS may indicate that developers and companies are looking at alternative blockchains to host or interact with their defi applications.
WAX, an EOSIO sisterchain specializing in Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) saw their first sale of Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. The sale was a success and sold out all of their Garbage Pail Kids NFTs. This may indicate the potential profitability of creating NFTs of other collectible items on EOSIO.
Staking on the DAPP Network is one way that users can profit while helping to maintain the vibrancy of service providers (DSP) of the network. LiquidApps, the company behind the DAPP Network, released a post highlighting the benefits of staking on the DAPP Network: (1) Hold DSPs accountable, (2) Boost your favorite teams with leasing markets, (3) Spin up your own LiquidChain, and (4) Support the CoVax effects against COVID-19. Users profit by staking their DAPP tokens to a DSP that pays out daily interest in DAPP tokens.
On the EOS mainnet, users are able to receive compensation for their voting weight by how many EOS tokens they have. Users can use platforms like Genpool.io where they can proxy their vote to an EOS voting proxy. According to a twitter announcement, Genpool.io "now allows proxy owners to set target APR% for end users. This gives stability in rates and creates more flexibility for proxy owners."
3. Developments within EOSIO Blockchain Gaming Scene
LaNgwenya of EOSWriter wrote a great overview of the EOSIO blockchain gaming scene. From 2018 to the present, LaNgwenya tracks the different gaming companies, partnerships, and developments that arose within the past 2 years that laid the foundation in having EOSIO blockchain gaming the most robust ecosystem in the blockchain space.
4. Block.one's Ongoing EOSIO Challenge and Upcoming Vote
With the EOSIO Challenge and EOSIO Virtual Hackathon already underway, Block.one is still committed to supporting the EOSIO community and developers. If you are interested in the EOSIO Challenge, BOSCore wrote a clear introduction and walkthrough for it.
Kevin Rose, formerly of EOS New York and now at Block.one, announced that the newly established Public Blockchain Engagement (PBE) division is reaching out to the community for feedback on what are the greatest milestones for the EOSIO community. It is speculated that the PBE in collaboration with an EOS Foundation will have a hand in the upcoming Block.one vote.
CEO Brendan Blumer explained his views on an EOS Foundation: "What makes an EOS Foundation so powerful is the native architecture of EOS governance itself, which requires token holder election for any position of authority. No establishment, no permanency, and always capable of evolution!"
Block.one announced their methodology in how they will evaluate and vote. They will initially vote with only 10 million EOS, aim to vote for candidates in a rotational manner, and employ a criteria to qualify for votes.
Lastly, Block.one also released an updated EOSIO Explorer v.1.2.0 to assist developers in their deployment of smart contracts. The EOSIO Explorer provides a GUI into the EOSIO blockchains, and check out the release if interested.
5. Tools Launched for Better EOSIO User Experience
One of the biggest hurdles in the EOS ecosystem is user experience especially with user on-boarding. Developers have pushed out products with somewhat good user experience such as Greymass's Anchor Wallet, bloks.io EOSIO block explorer, and EOSIO authenticator. However, there are still mishaps that beginners need to know before venturing into this ecosystem.
The team members from dfuse published a handy guide to "overcome the most common error messages." The guide goes over 7 of the most common errors on EOSIO and provides remedies to each one. It is very useful to those developers and users who are still navigating and learning about EOSIO blockchains and ecosystem.
In addition, one of the biggest gripes as an EOS user is managing CPU in order to interact with the EOS mainnet in terms of transactions and operations. Developers have created decentralized applications such as wallets and games that manage and pay for CPU and other resources for the user. Here is a helpful list from Reddit, and the EOSX wallet recently announced that they provide free CPU and transactions.
Blockstart, a blockchain incubator, recently released DAPP Accounts, which allows for easy user on-boarding by creating EOS accounts with just an email and a mobile number. The need for more users is tantamount to the success of the EOS mainnet, and these recent developments will help on-board beginners. DAPP Accounts uses LiquidAccounts on the DAPP Network.
Wombat Wallet announced that they now support free creation of Telos and EOS accounts. Wombat Wallet is becoming a popular wallet for EOSIO users because of its ease to access gaming dApps, to protect private keys, and to interact in the EOSIO ecosystem.
6. EOSIO Venture Funding Announcements
It seems that Wombat Wallet's recent upgrades with user experience and the issuance of free accounts may be in part due to the recent seven-digit financing round led by FinLab AG. FinLab Managing Director Stefan Schutze explained that "as a supporter of the EOSIO ecosystem with our fund and investments, we really like the approach of Spielworks (company of Wombat Wallet)-how it enables the unique solution for users to create free EOS token accounts easily."
7. EOS Mainnet Upgrade Proposal
EOSLaoMao, a top 21 Block Producer, announced that they created a multi-signature proposal that will monitor the effectiveness of Block Producers. The proposal would give authority to the Block Producers to allow the voting out of unreliable top-21 Block Producers who miss block production. This proposal is an important standard that the top-21 Block Producers need to ratify so that it can provide a reliable environment in which transactions and operations are validated while punishing unreliable Block Producers. Developers and commercial enterprise will migrate to the EOS mainnet if they know that the mechanics under the hood can be trusted.
8. Progress of Voice
Voice CEO Salah Zalatimo shared progress on the timeline of the roll-out of Voice Beta. Zalatimo was asked about his thoughts on the issue of onboarding frictions that lead to user acquisition attrition. Zalatimo believes that "onboarding is the key. We are building a fast, accurate way to onboard new users and verify their identities. It will begin it's roll out this summer."
9. Class-action Lawsuit against Block.one and Leadership
An article by Aislinn Keely reported the ongoing class-action lawsuit against Block.one and it's leadership. Keely highlighted that "investors in the EOS initial coin offering have filed a class action complaint against Block.one in the Southern District of New York" and that "the plaintiffs allege that the company provided misleading statements to investors."
10. Deadline to Claim KROWN tokens
If you have KROWN tokens and did not claim them yet, please take a look at this great walkthrough and tutorial by Hodl EOS because the deadline is in several days.
Disclaimer: KJ Kingsley is not a financial advisor and holds the digital tokens or cryptocurrencies represented in the content above. This content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing contained in this post constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer by myself to buy or sell any securities or other financial instruments in this or in any other jurisdiction in which such solicitation or offer would be unlawful under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the author’s employers.