EOS quick-start. [ Part 1 ] Introduction.

EOSIO 1.0

What the heck is EOS, and why should I care?

According to EOS.IO: EOS is a software that introduces a blockchain architecture designed to enable vertical and horizontal scaling of decentralized applications.

But what does it mean?..
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Blockchain Architecture

is often described as a Peer-to-Peer Distributed Ledger Technology, which is essentially a p2p network of replicated, and synchronized ledger data, but it can be so much more than that.. Imagine building an application based on event sourcing storage and CQRS pattern, where you build your application state from a sequence of immutable events, rather than storing and managing it. Now, imagine that events immutability is secured with cryptography, distributed and validated on a peer to peer network, and chained in such way that if one of them is tempered with -- the whole chain becomes invalid. This way users of such application can trust that data is correct without putting their trust in the application service provider. EOS will make such uses of blockchain actually possible because of its high throughput (ability to process over 100,000 transactions per second with an average confirmation time of less than 1 second) as opposed to the low throughput of Ethereum: about 25 transactions per second.

Decentralized applications (dApps)

are applications that run on p2p networks, as opposed to centralized servers and have no single point of failure. Some examples of such applications are BitTorrent and Popcorn Time. And in case of the blockchain, such examples are CryptoKitties, EtherDelta, and all the ICOs. All those are built in most cases on top of Ethereum platform, which is a most common platform for dApps. Ethereum platform uses gas fees to prevent network spamming, which make it usable only for financial applications, because why would you want to pay fees for applications that have nothing to do with finance. EOS have a different approach to this problem, that limits the transaction rate proportionally to staked value and allow dApps that don't require fees to exist as well.

EOS is more a Social Experiment than an application platform

As opposed to other blockchains EOS has its own constitution and elections. EOS participants have certain rights and responsibilities, for instance, you have a right to vote for you block producers(representatives) and you have then a right to open a dispute on some issues. On the other hand, if you don't vote, or do not use your account for a few years you, your funds can get redistributed, which means that you are obligated to be an active community member.

This concludes [ Part 1 ] Introduction of EOS Quick-Start series

more from this series:

[ Part 2 ] Install from sources

[ Part 3 ] Run Local Testnet

Disclaimer:

This article is not a financial advice and not an endorsement to use EOS or invest in EOS platform.