There is a lot of excitement surrounding the EOS mainnet launch. So far, things have not gone according to plan by any means. Many issues have been dealt with, yet the official release took much longer than expected. Even so, the main net has launched successfully, which is all most supporters will care about at this stage.
The EOS Mainnet Issues
Facing multiple setbacks when launching a new blockchain is always worrisome. In the case of EOS, a few issues popped up which had nothing to do with the technology itself. First of all, there was a phishing email campaign due to a compromised Zendesk account. That issue was eventually resolved, yet it did raise a lot of criticism in the process.
Additionally, the mainnet was pushed back numerous times. Security vulnerabilities were identified by a Chinese firm several weeks ago. That development is a positive one in the end. Launching a mainnet with issues is never a smart idea. Speaking of bugs, there has been a somewhat official audit by another firm over the past few weeks. Several minor issues have been addressed because of those reports.
There is also the EOS ‘constitution‘ which needs to be highlighted. In a decentralized ecosystem, an official constitution seems counterproductive. With the Block.one team drafting these ‘rules,’ an interesting situation is created. This also seems to indicate there is a central entity controlling EOS, which will not be to the liking of most users. Whether or not that will be a problem, remains to be seen.
The Positive News
Despite all of these setbacks, positive news was received earlier today. The EOS mainnet has, according to the website, officially launched. It is a big milestone for the project. Living up to users’ expectations will prove challenging regardless. If any vulnerability is discovered now, there will be a lot of backlash, for understandable reasons.
For now, the network is still going through its ‘launch sequence.’ That process takes anywhere from 24 to 48 hours to complete successfully. On June 10th, there will be a round of validation by the EOS Mainnet Launch Group. Assuming that validation is successful, the net will be opened to the public.
After the launch, there will be a voting round for the 21 initial Block Producers. This voting process requires 150m tokens to be ‘spent’ on the vote itself. This is the final step which needs to be completed prior to officially launching the EOS mainnet in its official capacity. A very exciting period for EOS supporters, although there is still a long way to go.