EOS is a blockchain-based network platform similar to Ethereum that seeks to be an accessible operating system for building decentralised applications or DAPPs.

The EOS project is being developed by a company called Block One, led by Dan Larimer (co-founder of Birshares and Steemit) and Brendan Bloomer. Both have serious technical expertise in the cryptocurrency domain and have been publicly active in promoting the technology.

Its goal is to lower the barrier to entry for DAPP development by providing an operating-system with fully fledged services and functions that developers can then use to create more tokens on the Ethereum platform.

One of the central ideas behind EOS is to bring the best features, services and pledges of the various smart contract technologies in the market – such as the security of Bitcoin or the computing support of Ethereum – into one, all-encompassing, massively scalable ‘Dapplication’ platform for everyday users to give rise to the looming Blockchain economy.

How EOS functions

EOS’ vision is to create a proprietary blockchain DAPP platform that can securely scale towards thousands of transactions per second (TPS), while also providing an easy, intuitive experience for developers, entrepreneurs and general users. At the moment, developers want to move towards establishing an operating system for decentralised, web-based applications that provide services such as user authentication, cloud storage and server hosting.

What do DAPPs need?

In order to be successful, decentralised apps must check a number of tick boxes. They need to be accessible from web browsers, scalable to millions of users for monetization purposes, and must also be responsive with fast confirmation times. In addition, DAPPs need to be upgradeable and have a human-friendly interface with account recovery options and a bug-fixing strategy.

EOS seeks to take these factors into account by providing parallel processing of smart contracts through horizontal scalability, asynchronous communication, and interoperability. It will provide databases, account permissions, scheduling, authentication, and internet-application communication.

At the moment, these proposed prospective solutions are in large part what is driving interest in EOS.

Scalability

EOS attempts to address problems of scalability which for the most part still plague the industry. The network enables inexpensive execution of smart contracts which in turn enables allows for new applications to be built with cost-efficiency. Since lowering fees associated with code execution on Ethereum is, in itself, a valuable market opportunity, EOS has consistently found itself among the top cryptocurrencies by market cap.

And while EOS relies on the Ethereum network, it can potentially scale to millions of transactions per second in comparison to the ETH platform. By bringing both scale and accessibility to developers, it provides inherent demand for its token in that the token is necessary for other tokens to be launched on the network.

Ethereum Scalability market

As is well known among developers, progress using Ethereum can be slow, which has its benefits such as providing ample opportunity for well-thought-out solutions to be implemented. In fact, EOS is one such solution that has come to the fore, with its parallel processing and asynchronous communication giving rise to the potential for millions of transactions per second to be executed on the network.

That said, all this must be taken into the context of a very new, developing industry whose importance has yet to be fully understood. Still, it cannot be understated that if EOS effectively manages to solve congestion, scalability and accessibility, then its future is looking bright.

Putting it all together

• EOS eases the scaling problem in Ethereum by providing an alternative network that can cater for millions of transactions per second.
• It creates a developer-friendly human-computer interface or operating system for building Ethereum-based DAPPs.
• The EOS token itself is only required for the registration of new applications. Its demand is based on the need for EOS, which should grow as more products are built on top of the Ethereum blockchain.
• It is developed in part by Dan Larimer, who has worked on other successful blockchain projects including Bitshares and Steemit.
• EOS and other scaling solutions are necessary for Ethereum’s long-term prospective growth. And while it’s still technically an ICO, the tokens could make for good long-term investments when considering their necessity for developers to build applications using the scaling technology in question.