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Debunking FUD and wrong information around EOS

I created this thread, to collect and debunk all the FUD and wrong information around EOS

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Misinformation: EOS is controlled by block.one

Truth: block.one is “only” one community member with less than 10% of EOS tokens today. They had a big weight to vote for the miners or validators, called Block Producers in EOS (10%), but can’t control EOS. Its true, that they developed the EOSIO protocol, which was used on the EOS mainnet. So one could argue, that they controlled EOS through the protocol development in the past. But the protocol is opensource. The EOS community decided to copy the protocol and develop it further in another direction. They stopped the vesting tokens to block.one and don’t pay them for the development anymore, since b1 has no longer the developers to do it. Most of the core devs resigned and are back in the EOS Community.

Here is a very good article about block.one and the relationship they had to EOS:

Misinformation: inactive accounts loose their tokens after 3 years

Truth: This is not true. This article was only in drafts of the initial EOS Constitution and didn’t make it to the final cut. Either way, it doesn’t matter now because the EOS Constitution is obsolete and was voted out completely by the BPs.

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Misinformation: block.one, Dan or Brendan are scamming people, the ICO was a money grab or the newest one there was wash trading and the ICO was a shady “pump scheme”

Truth: Read the newest information about that topic here (EOS network Foundation 10. of May 2022): EOS Was the World’s Most Hyped Blockchain. Its Fans Want It Back | WIRED

block.one run an ICO to collect money to develop the EOSIO protocol. The website on this time was EOS.io, so it was referred often as “EOS” which was misguiding. Was it for EOS the public blockchain or for EOSIO the software protocol? (for example see here: https://b1.com/news/eos-blockchain-operating-system-unveils-year-long-token-distribution/). There were as well promises about 1000 dapps launching and millions of transactions, which not game true until today. One can see that when they wrote EOS it was linked to eos.io, the protocol development and not to a public chain. The EOS mainnet was not in place at this time. After the mainnet launch the community called the mainnet “EOS”. Nobody knew how many public chains will be launched. It could have happened that there were 10 EOSIO public chains launched and none with the name “EOS”. This is why people often get confused, about ICO money. The ICO money was for developing the EOSIO protocol and not for advertising a public chain (today called “EOS” mainnet), even Brendan did promise to provide funds for the EOS ecosystem on the voice event, which as well did not found the way to EOS, but to companies developing on other EOSIO chains or even on Ethereum.

Here is a good tweet, about what happened with the ICO money which block.one collected: And here is a good tweet what happened with the ICO money which block.one collected:

And here another good recap from a long term EOS admin elvisthecat 猫王, [25/11/2021 04:11]:
Source Telegram: Contact @EOSproject

"Yes, ERC20 EOS tokens were issued by B1 for a year-long ICO.

Block.one is a Cayman Islands-registered technology company that was established in 2016, and developed the EOSIO software, an operating system that would underlie one or more anticipated EOSIO-based blockchains. From June 26, 2017 through June 1, 2018 (the “Relevant Period”), Block.one conducted a “token distribution,” or “initial coin offering” (“ICO”), in which it publicly offered and sold 900 million digital assets (“ERC-20 Tokens”) in exchange for Ether, a digital asset, to raise capital to develop the EOSIO software and promote the launch of EOSIObased blockchains.

As set forth in the Token Purchase Agreement, which was posted on the EOS.IO Website, and in other public statements, the ERC-20 Token was not the same token that eventually would be used on any anticipated EOSIO-based blockchains. Rather, the ERC-20 Token was designed to become fixed and nontransferable on the Ethereum blockchain (a different blockchain platform) at the close of the ERC-20 Token sale, meaning that while a record of past transactions could be confirmed on the Ethereum blockchain, new transfers of the ERC-20 Token could not occur on the Ethereum blockchain and the smart contract would have no further functionality at that point. Beginning in December 2017, Block.one began to release beta versions of the EOSIO software and explained that once the official version was published under an open source software license, anyone could view the software’s code and use it to configure and launch blockchains (such as the EOS Blockchain, which would be a different blockchain than an Ethereum blockchain).

Details in, for those that are interested
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2019/33-10714.pdf"

Provided funds or money until today (A timeframe to deploy those funds were never given and we see this process continuing) from block.one I know of:

  • Development and further updates to the EOSIO protocol for more than 3 years (this includes paying for the company and salary of the team, who develop EOSIO)
  • Organization and execution of more than 5 or more? hackathons including prize money
  • Grants for the community (last one around $631000 to EOS Nation and EOS Asia for creating a platform on the EOS Public Blockchain that will encourage and fund open-source software development) - pomelo.io
  • block.one announced they will be a fund matching partner on pomelo.io
  • EOS VC funded several EOS projects, for example Everipedia, wordproof, Upland, Sense, PUML, The writer company, and some more. But maybe the VC’s could be managed differently with more benefit for EOS. But I understand that the VC’s need a sustainable business case to invest money. So I guess there were not too many project, with good enough (legal) business case for these VC’s to invest in - still they are not finished today with investing. As soon sustainable projects pop up on EOS, they maybe continue to invest. See here the portfolio of 133 projects they invested in (and counting): Portfolio - B1
  • Together with Cryptology Asset Group $7.5M Seed Investment into the EOS project Chintai.io
  • Funds for developing voice.com, which will leverage EOS
  • Funds for bullish.com, which will leverage EOS and bring liquidity to the EOS Ecosystem

Clifford Chance LLP supported by PwC Hong Kong and DMG Blockchain Solutions were engaged to review Block.one’s actions during the token sale conducted between June 26, 2017 and June 1, 2018. The token sale involved 900 million ERC-20 compatible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, which were governed by a related ERC-20 smart contract. The review was completed in July 2021 and found no evidence that Block.one either intentionally purchased tokens by any means during the token sale or entered into any arrangements with third parties to do so on their behalf. This was an extremely thorough and time-consuming review confirming what we always knew to be the case. The report can be found here: https://eos.io/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Report-on-Token-purchased-during-Block.ones-Token-Sale-22-July-2021-final.pdf
And here you can read more about the SEC waiver for Block.One, EOS is officially not a security: https://www.eosgo.io/news/sec-waiver-for-block-one

The newest FUD about wash trading, was most likely exchanges or other players who wanted to have a say, buying up EOS tokens, since EOS is controlled by token holders voting for the BP’s in charge.

Misinformation Dan left EOS

Truth Dan left block.one and not EOS! Dan is working with the EOS Community, to improve the EOS funding and governance. The Eden process is based on Dan’s study https://moreequalanimals.com (book available for free download) and is a truly democratic way to elect leaders in the EOS community which are allocating funds to EOS projects or anything what the community decides is needed for EOS. The official website is edeneos.org. Dan is funding the development of the EdenOS software which supports the process.

Misinformation: block.one is dumping their EOS and buy Bitcoin with it

Truth: block.one had an ICO back in 2017 and sold EOS tokens for ETH tokens. So always when someone bought EOS tokens, block.one got Ethereum tokens and most likely sold them. Thats how they got around 4 billion. They sold the Ethereum tokens they received. Like all normal companies they diversified that money. With some Ethereum tokens they bought Bitcoins.

In June 2018 the EOS mainnet launched and the EOS community decided to give block.one the 100 Mio EOS tokens to increase the possibility, that they will stay in the EOS community and will have a big interest in the future to help the EOS mainnet succeed. I am not sure if there was any contract or conditions to that, except the ongoing development of EOSIO for the next 10 years. The EOS blockchain launched with 1 billion tokens, 900 million of which went to those who purchased the EOS ICO and 100 million of which went to Block.one. The 100 million tokens allocated for Block.one were to vest over a period of 10 years for continued development support, 10% of which unlock each year.

Still, block.one did not dump any of their 100 Mio EOS yet. You can check that here: https://bloks.io/account/b1

They forwarded 20 Mio to Bullish account https://bloks.io/account/bullish and paid one contractor 333,334.35 EOS and 2x 83,333.35 EOS, because they insisted to get paid in EOS. The rumor on the $EOS streets is, that “it’s likely BitGo, that works on the custody aspect.”

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Misinformation: We need thousands of nodes in order to decentralize a system.

Truth: * A recent study claims that a quorum of nodes will achieve the highest degree of decentralization.*([1801.03998] Decentralization in Bitcoin and Ethereum Networks)

Misinformation: EOS is centralized

Truth: EOS is decentralized. One could argue EOS is less decentralized than others, but surely EOS is not centralized. In my view, EOS is actually the most censorship-resistant chain.

Check out the article from Phillip Hamnett:
https://philliphamnett.medium.com/how-the-success-of-block-one-is-linked-to-eos-3ad47f0821c

He wrote:
" Why is EOS the most censorship-resistant chain?

There are lots of different protocols to develop censorship-resistant blockchains, proof of work is the original mechanism used by Bitcoin and Ethereum. The problem with PoW is that it is possible for a country to seize and control the hardware within their country and perform a 51% attack. The mining pools that run on these chains could also agree to collaborate to perform a 51% attack. If they do this, then it does not just break Bitcoin, but all PoW chains. Because if someone creates a fork of Bitcoin, and that fork becomes popular, then the bad actor can simply switch from mining on the (now dead) Bitcoin chain to the popular fork, and they will immediately have over 51% of the mining power again. The effect is to dilute the PoW chains and make them all more susceptible to such an attack.

The DPOS system used by EOS however does not lend itself to such an attack, as each of the 21 node validators is selected based on the tokens held by voters within the system. These votes in practice come from a mixture of individuals who want to make positive impacts on the ecosystem by voting for high quality network validators, or by exchanges voting with funds that belong to the users of their products. For a country or bad actor to take control of the network, they have to now either buy 51% of all the tokens (which is prohibitively expensive), or they have to coerce 15 of the node validators. In both cases, a simple fork of the network would allow a new set of node validators (demonstrated from the hive community when they forked of steem) to be selected and the money they used to buy the 51% of tokens is wasted, and all efforts would have to start from scratch."

And two simple graphic shows everything:

Misinformation: The Top 21 Block Producers are manipulating the voting system

Truth: No nobody manipulated the voting system. The Top 21 Block Producers changed a lot since 2017. There are “issues” on all the chains. Every chain is a plutocracy (POW and POS chains) and not a democracy. But somehow only in EOS there were massive FUD campaigns going on against EOS governance. All the chains have a kind of a pareto in place, where the chain will end up with a small amount of big parties which control the chains. Maybe EOS got that much hate, because its the only chain, that is transparent and people really can see what is happening. The good thing is, EOS is still alive after all this hate and keep thriving. Anyway EOS continue to improve their governance process and try to eliminate the pareto Princip. And with Eden edeneos.org, EOS could get a truly democratic governance process (political playoffs > moreequalanimals.com). The elected leaders from a bottom-up approach will get budgets to fund EOS projects. If the process is successful, it will be put fully on chain and maybe as well put in place to elect Block Producers. But first the process have to proof that it works for funding… Everything else, the EOS community did not discuss how the process could be used for good further than funding… Surely there is a lot of new hope, excitement and a new hype building up…

Misinformation: EOS is a “vote buying” “cartel” who is “bribing” each other to stay in power.

Truth: EOS is DPOS (Delegated proof of stake). It has not much to do with voting. The EOS Community just choose that word. But in truth, EOS token holders are staking EOS to Block Producers, to select the 21 BP’s with the biggest stake to allow them to produce the blocks.

“EOS vote buying” is no different to miners negotiating cheaper electricity or hardware.They need electricity in order to get block rewards, in EOS the Block Producers need votes. How you get them is up to their business skills, connections, value creation, and lobbying skills. With EOS one is lobbying with other stakeholders of the network whereas with POW one is talking to hardware and energy providers which might not even have any stake in the network. EOS votes are a free market and there is no one strategy to obtaining votes. BP’s normally have a mixture of strategies.

  1. some voters just vote normally and receive no rewards (this includes B1). This is achieved via having a presence and adding value to the network via building tools, marketing etc to get those votes.
  2. some give voter rewards (pay for votes) using proxy rewards services like genpool and newpool. This is for large accounts like Binance that are trying to monetise their EOS, generally they require 80% of the income you generate from the votes. Normally this is called staking. Somehow in EOS the people named it suddenly “vote buying”.
  3. Some have their own proxy (votes) (genpoolproxy) that they trade votes with other large vote holders. This is usually a process where one must like what each other brings and negotiate a good deal that they are happy with between each other.

This is extremely competitive, people only trade with each other if the deal is good and they believe they bring value into the EOS ecosystem. For example, I will vote for you if you vote for me because you are good for xyz reasons. Combine all those things together and you can climb the ranks.

There is no cartel because EOS was distributed to many many different large stakeholders who are all fighting to do the same thing. It’s super competitive. Generally the ones that prove them self as worthy get the better deals and relationships For example EOS Nation is not a whale but they add a lot of value so they get recognised for it from large stakeholders and therefore get better deals.
Tell me an electricity provider that gives cheap electricity to any POW miner because they add value to the POW network. You can’t because the incentives are different. On EOS the incentives are aligned!

Chris from EdenEOS.org started on the 5. of August 2021 to introduce the Block Producers. Get to know them and what they are doing. I will add every video he is doing here:
#EOS Block Producer Interviews #1 - EOS Costa Rica - YouTube
#EOS Block Producer Interviews #2 - Greymass - YouTube
#EOS Block Producer Interviews #3 - EOS Amsterdam - YouTube
#EOS Block Producer Interviews #4 - CryptoLions - YouTube
#EOS Block Producer Interviews #5 - EOS USA - YouTube
#EOS Block Producer Interviews #6 - Pizza BP - YouTube
#EOS Block Producer Interviews #7 - EOS Argentina - YouTube
#EOS Block Producer Interviews #8 - EOS MicroLoans - YouTube
#EOS Block Producer Interviews #9 - EOS Detroit - YouTube

EOS Block Producer Guide — Updated April 10, 2021

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Misinformation: EOS is not a blockchain and does not even use Merkle trees.

Truth: * EOS uses Merkle trees just like any other blockchain. EOS does have a merkle tree over all the transactions within a block. Additionally EOS maintains a merkle tree over all of the blocks. This means it is possible to prove you have been paid without having to process all blocks nor trust the full nodes. These proofs are smaller than ETH because light nodes don’t even require the full history of block headers. That is a design choice that makes EOS so fast! Superior technology all the way. Don’t let the misinformation campaign get to you. Keep in mind everyone has an agenda…

*This information has been copied from the eosbasecamp.com website, which no longer exists. Thanks to the author / Edit 5. April 2021: read, felt for good and a small addition by Dan Larimer

Misinformation: The EOS network got congested on the “EIDOS issue”

Truth: The network never was congested. What happened is that the price of transaction was rising that much, because of inefficient resource allocation, that the users were unable to transact, because the transactions got too expensive. If one would have paid for it, it still would have been possible to transact. To be correct, there were some transactions failing from time to time. So if one was transacting on the wrong time, it looked like the network was congested. But since EOS does not charge anything for failed transactions, one could have just tried again until it went through. That’s what I did at that time. With the new resource model “Power Up” in place and all the advancements and upgrades the Block Producers have made, EOS is now ready for prime time! The BP’s are able to handle anything you throw at them!

Misinformation: EOS is a ghost/dead chain and nobody is developing on EOS

Truth: There are several projects developing on EOS (check here: EOS Wallet Overview - #3 by dobuora) and the most important improvements in the last year for EOS itself was:

More information about ongoing developments you find as well here: https://www.reddit.com/r/eos/comments/n8jpyc/summary_of_current_ongoing_developments_and_news/

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Misinformation: EOS transactions are free

Truth: They are not free, someone is always covering those costs through one or more of the systems EOS provides. Every transaction has a variable “resource cost” (depending on the transaction) represented as CPU and NET. Accounts have a balance of these resources which is depleted as transactions are performed.

These resources can be obtained or provided in a number of ways:

  • A wallet may be providing these resources to their users either for a fee or at a cost.
  • An application may be providing these resources to their users either for a fee or at a cost.
  • A user can stake tokens (lock) to receive a small amount of resources each day.
  • A user can rent resources from the network by paying EOS tokens into either REX or PowerUp.
  • A user can rent resources from a 3rd party by paying them.
  • A user can pay a small fee per transaction to a 3rd party to have individual costs covered.

Very often EOS is promoted as “having free transactions”, which needs to end. There may be some situations where free transactions are provided under certain circumstances, but someone is always paying for those and the network itself does in fact not have free transactions.

Users who stake their EOS can earn enough EOS to rent the resources they need. This means your EOS balance can remain stable or grow as you use the network if you have sufficient staked EOS. That said, capital costs is just another kind of fee unless you wanted to hold the EOS anyway.

All of that said, EOS does have the lowest fees around.

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I would include the phrase “feeless instead of free” somewhere in the debunk.

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Thank you for making this info easy to find!!

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Great job! Might want to include something about EOS not being a dead project or a dead chain.

Check here the newest and maybe best and most accurate article about EOS history and beginners guide to EOS

https://violet.garden/post/A-Beginner’s-Guide-to-EOS-5324
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