EOS is a smart contract platform much like Ethereum. EOS, however, promises the ability to perform millions of transactions per second, without any fees! How could this be possible, given the scalability of other major blockchains? In this guide, we dive into what EOS is doing differently to achieve this, and what those choices mean for the network.
What Does EOS Blockchain Bring To The Table?
Let’s check out some of the features of EOS.
#1 Scalability
The biggest problem that the blockchain based space is facing is scalability issue
Visa manages 1667 transactions per second while Paypal manages 193 transactions per second. Compared to that, Bitcoin manages just 3-4 transactions per second while Ethereum fairs slightly better at 20 transactions per second.
The reason why blockchain-based applications can’t compute that many transactions per second are because each and every node of the network must come to a consensus for anything to go through.
EOS are claiming that because they use DPOS aka the distributed proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, they can easily compute millions of transactions per second. We will explore DPOS in a bit.
#2 Flexibility
Ethereum’s entire system came to a standstill because of the DAO attack. Everything stopped and the community got split because of the hardfork.
Because EOS uses DPOS this is unlikely to happen again in their ecosystem. If a DAPP is faulty, the elected block producers can freeze it until the system is taken care of. This is simply an extension of the DPOS system, not every node has to take care of chain maintenance.
#3 Usability
EOS allows well-defined levels of permission by incorporating features like web toolkit for interface development, self-describing interfaces, self-describing database schemas, and a declarative permission scheme.
#4 Governance
In EOS the Governance is maintained by establishing jurisdiction and choice of law along with other mutually accepted rules This is usually done via the legally binding constitution. Every single transaction in EOS must include the hash of the constitution to the signature. This, in essence, binds the users to the constitution.
The constitution and protocol can be amended by the following process:
The change is proposed by the block producer who obtains a 17/21 approval rate
The 17/21 approval must be maintained for 30 straight days.
All users are required to sign off their transaction using the hash of the new constitution.
Block producers adopt changes to the source code to reflect the change in the constitution and propose it to the blockchain using the hash of a git commit.
Block producers again need to maintain 17/21 approval for 30 consecutive days.
After that, full nodes are given one whole week to adapt to the new changes.
Any node that doesn’t follow the new protocol is automatically shut down.
So what happens if something like the DAO happens and the EOS system is forced to look for a quick change and solution to the protocol? In emergencies like that the block producers have the power to speed up the amending process.
#5 Parallel Processing
In parallel processing, program instructions are divided among multiple processors. By doing this, the running time of that program decreases greatly. EOS provides parallel processing of smart contracts through horizontal scalability, asynchronous communication, and interoperability.
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