EOS Blockchain Officially Launches After Record $4 Billion ICO

The world’s fifth largest cryptocurrency by market cap has officially launched its new protocol. Release version 1.0 of the open source EOSIO blockchain software is now available on GitHub.

Exchanges, miners and other groups that help power EOS are taking a snapshot of all EOS ERC20 tokens to mark the occasion. That will allow developers to identify how many tokens will say goodbye to Ethereum and migrate to the new mainnet once it’s online. EOS has also released a new outline of what the platform is designed to include:

1. Free Rate Limited Transactions
2. Low Latency Block confirmation (0.5 seconds)
3. Low-overhead Byzantine Fault Tolerant Finality
4. Optional high-overhead, low-latency BFT finality
5. Smart contract platform powered by Web Assembly
6. Designed for Sparse Header Light Client Validation
7. Scheduled Recurring Transactions
8. Time Delay Security
9. Hierarchical Role Based Permissions
10. Support for Biometric Hardware Secured Keys (e.g. Apple Secure Enclave)
11. Parallel Execution of Context Free Validation Logic
12. Inter Blockchain Communication

EOS is known for having the “longest ICO in cryptocurrency history”, and has reportedly raised a staggering, record-breaking $4 billion in nearly a year.

In that time, the team at EOS has also raised a lot of eyebrows and attention regarding its big ambitions for the platform, with claims it will feature zero transaction fees and scale to allow millions of transactions per second.

A few days ago, the Chinese internet security company Qihoo said it had discovered a “series of epic vulnerabilities” in the EOS protocol. The Chief Technology Officer at EOS responded, calling the report FUD and saying all but one of the reported bugs had already been fixed. Soon after, EOS announced a $10,000 bounty for anyone who can find a major bug on the platform.

Momentum for the impending launch has been building for months with cryptocurrency trading around $7.70 at the beginning of March. The network has a robust ecosystem of DApps including projects like EOS Gems, Insights Network, Onepay and HireVibes. EOS is now trading at $12.29 at time of publishing, according to CoinMarketCap.