I, like many others, have spent years of my life invested in the EOS community. I'm passionate about on-chain governance, high performance blockchains, and sustainable global nonviolent consensus. In a world of deep fakes, political lies, science "facts" which change as often as the wind, and money-printer-go-brrrrrr financial fairy tales, the world needs the censorship-resistant, immutable truth that blockchains provide. Since 2018, the EOS Mainnet has been working towards the intention of becoming the global platform we all need.
But it's been a sh*t show. I'm not going to sugar coat it or hold back any punches. I've heard it said a few times in the EOS community:
Those who still hold EOS are truly in it for the technology.
All around us we see tokens that have grown 10X in value with the major tokens like BTC and ETH hitting new all time highs with EOS floundering, dropping in market cap rankings from the 4th most valuable cryptocurrency in the world to now outside of the top 25.
I woke up this morning to see this message posted in a Facebook crypto group I'm in:
In the comments there were accusations about Brock Pierce, Dan Larimer, and Block One. I wrote this in reply:
I was just thinking how healthy it would be to have Brock and Dan do a fully transparent deep dive on the history of EOS and Block One. Clean the wound, so to speak.
I think people want this level of transparency, especially when billions of dollars are concerned. I wonder what would happen if it was actually given to them. Could they handle it? Would Brendan freak out and sue? Would the SEC respond? This, I think, would be really, really interesting. What mistakes were made? What lessons learned? What would be done differently if there was a chance for a do over? I think the whole industry could benefit from a transparent deep dive like this.
I've been thinking about this all day. I'm realizing just how bad things have gotten within the EOS community and, specifically, with regards to Block One. For those that don't know, I've seen first hand how a centralized company in a decentralized ecosystem can fester into a cancer which will eventually be removed by the community. I was a consensus witness when the Steem blockchain was Sybil attacked and the community forked to become Hive.
For me, this feels like déjà vu. Block One has consistently let this community down, and this community is sick of it. A rebel alliance is forming and some of them see Block One as the evil empire Death Star.
Dan Larimer has completely left Block One. He is no longer involved in Block One at any level, and he's not the only one. I asked around and these are some of the other names I've been told have left (with rumors of others also considering leaving soon):
- Greg Lee
- Bart Wyatt
- Sergey Metelin
- Todd Fleming
- Ted Cahall
These are core developers and key executives who have been with Block One from the beginning. It seems they are sick of it also. Some, I've been told, are even working with Dan Larimer directly because they still believe in the vision of what EOS and the EOS community can become.
Before I get into all of the reasons why people are so fed up with Block One, let's talk about some encouraging things first. Have you heard of EdenOS yet?
You will.
This is something which truly has the potential to change the world. Do yourself a favor after reading this post and follow this link to learn more. Read Dan Larimer's book More Equal Animals which you can get online for free. I read it in two days. It's that good and that important for the world today. It's a new approach to human governance and selecting representatives which could be a Magna Carta moment for our species. If you think I'm being hyperbolic, read it yourself and let's discuss the implications.
I personally think this is part of the reason why Dan left. He could no longer serve his mission "to create free market, voluntary solutions for securing life, liberty, property, and justice for all" while being hindered by Block One.
Why are people leaving Block One and why is the EOS community so frustrated?
Why are scathing glass door reviews like this being written by ex employees of Block One? Lack of leadership, lack of decision making, projects stuck in beta forever, and "the impression the place operates on whims and fancies" were all mentioned.
What has Block One been doing with all that friggen money?!?!?
EOS VC has been a total failure, from my perspective. I've heard heart wrenching stories from people I know who were strung along, in some cases for over 12 months (!!), thinking they would get funding which never materialized.
What about Voice?
This was the big announcement at the B1 June event almost two years ago! When I go to the site now, I see a blank white page:
Someone told me the site was gone and my content was gone. I checked on my phone today and see this:
What the hell? Is this some kind of rug pull by a company reportedly sitting on around 240,000 BTC ($10B+)? Where are my posts or my Voice tokens? This was supposed to showcase the possibilities of the EOS technology and redefine social media. Now all my Voice content is gone. How can this company be trusted with anything related to the future of EOS?
Even their latest Staking Pool ideas are not being well received if you follow the chatter in https://t.me/eosstakingpools or read Brady Dale's take on it over at Coindesk. There's an ongoing disconnect between what Block One is doing on their own in EOSIO land (which is the generic software) and what is practical for running on the EOS Mainnet chain (which is where the EOS token and EOS community exists). They are too centralized and too disconnected from the community to effectively obtain buy-in to deploy something like this.
Block One doesn't operate transparently and, from the outside looking in, seems to be in a constant state of fear. Sure, they paid off the SEC, but what other government agency might come after their war chest next? Are they going to do anything other than preserve their own survival?
After a daddy daughter date with my youngest last night, I caught part of WALL-E with the kids and one of my favorite lines from the captain comes to mind for the EOS community right now:
"I don't want to survive. I want to LIVE!"
I've been frustrated at the lack of action since January:
https://twitter.com/lukestokes/status/1346075954649640962
- lukestokes
Click through on that whole thread for a full perspective of what I was thinking then.
We're sick of barely surviving with no direct support from Block One for the EOS Mainnet. When the community launched EOS (and I was part of that launch as a member of eosDAC), the community decided what the genesis would look like. We decided to honor the year long B1 ICO. We decided to deploy the chain with the 100M EOS tokens set aside and locked in the code for an organization that would continue to promote and support EOS. Not EOSIO, but EOS. Where is that company? If it's not Block One, who are those tokens for? They were vested for a reason based on an expectation that the significant funds raised from EOS investors would, you know, actually benefit EOS investors in some way.
Is there hope?
Yes! There may be more real hope for EOS now than there ever was before. I do believe Dan Larimer is an under-appreciated genius who has done more for blockchain technology than most people realize as the inventor of Delegated Proof of Stake which runs BitShares, Steem, Hive, and EOS, and has been a catalyst for many other resource-conserving consensus algorithms beyond Proof of Work (or what some call Proof of Waste as in wasted energy). Dan is now free to fully commit himself to building freedom. He's no longer constrained by corporate lawyers.
He might also be uniquely positioned to not only communicate to Block One just how bad things have gotten within the EOS community, but to finally get their financial support for the community.
As described in the latest EOS Hot Sauce that came out today:
On a recent Telegram voice chat, the community was excited to learn that Dan Larimer is currently discussing with Block.one about potential collaborations and/or funding options for Eden. Dan also confirmed that development for Eden is progressing at a steady pace and the community is eagerly waiting to learn more in the coming days and weeks.
There is hope. Block One still has a chance to avoid becoming the evil empire by instead partnering with the EOS community and donating significant financial support to EdenOS, the EOS community, and a reborn EOS Alliance. We want to believe Bullish and ProFi and every other promise that has come and gone from B1 will actually mean something to EOS someday. We want to believe, but we're not stupid and there are limits to our patience. I've seen many of my dear friends, some of the best minds I've ever seen in the technology space, move on to other projects because they could no longer wait for Block One to do something useful.
I don't want to throw Brendan or Block One under the bus. As I also mentioned in that Twitter thread in January, I have no idea what it's like to be responsible for billions of dollars. Neither do you.
https://twitter.com/lukestokes/status/1346083771053961216
- lukestokes
I respect what Block One has done to create EOSIO technology. As the Managing Director for almost a year and a half now of the non-profit Foundation for Interwallet Operability which supports the FIO Protocol built on EOSIO technology, I owe much to what Block One has accomplished.
I'm also still part of the EOS community. I decided last month to vote with my resources according to what I believe in and that included selling ETH/BSC tokens for EOS. So far, that hasn't been a great financial decision:
https://twitter.com/lukestokes/status/1386084712645529602
- lukestokes
But if I can't vote with my resources for conscious capitalism towards something I believe in now, then when will I ever be able to do it?
Myself and many in the EOS community are done waiting. Too many other opportunities have passed us by while we've remained steadfast and continued to build with no resources and no support.
Can you imagine what we could do together if we, as a community, were properly funded using a governance model described in Dan's book that actually works? EdenOS is going to prove the model with real people like you and me. Imagine what a dedicated group of community members who also want to build freedom could do with hundreds of millions of dollars considering how much they've already done with next to nothing?
This could change the world.
I hope Block One steps up to the plate to support the EOS community. There is no more patience left, and we will not just go quietly on in survival mode.
We want to live and thrive!
As I said above, please read Dan's book and check out everything going on with EdenOS.
Also, if you care about making cryptocurrency easier to use, learn about the FIO Protocol with these 4 super short videos on Coin Market Cap's learn and earn site: https://coinmarketcap.com/earn/project/fio-protocol
Let's work together to create a world we all want to live in that includes resource conserving blockchains (tools for global, immutable truth) like EOS and efforts to make all cryptocurrencies easier for regular people through projects like FIO.
Thanks for reading.