The mainnet launches in just one week!

BlockOne racing against Community boot initiatives

With the release of Dawn 4.2 and the pending release of EOSIO Version 1.0 on June 1st BlockOne is running full steam ahead. Right along side are several mainnet boot initiatives organized and run by community.

These boot initiatives are a series of scripts, tests, and procedures organized and run by various Block Producing candidates and other interested parties in the community. The goal is to launch a robust mainnet complete with full EOS token snapshot as quickly and reliably as possible. This “run by the community” design presents a few interesting challenges and points.

Just as fast as these initiatives seemingly perfect their implementations so it seems Block.One provides new and exciting updates that these boot initiatives must rush to account for. The latest example in Dawn 4.2 is the addition of multiple new eos.io accounts to allocate system funds and the inclusion of Patroneos to natively protect block producing nodes from denial of service attacks.

Wait, how many?

There is the potential for many networks to be created. Only one can remain at the end

With an open community initiative comes the high likelihood of multiple boot networks. The idea is that all networks that are proven to be reliable with a complete set of starting unpaid block producers and have a valid complete EOS token snapshot will be eligible as the final mainnet.

The exact method in which the final mainnet is chosen has not yet been fully decided: however it is likely as simple as whichever one sees the highest initial activity attains an unlocked state first (15% of total token supply staked and voted). Once this happens the unpaid block producers will be replaced by elected block producers and official paid block production will start.

To assuage the community over speculation that multiple networks will carry on several block producing candidates have signed an open pledge stating that they will support only a single mainnet.

What is the priority?

While there are undoubtedly many mainnet boot initiatives two appear to the most popular, and Team GenerEOS is participating in both. While similar in their goal of automation they each raise questions of how easy it should be to become a block producer.

Make it easy and automatic?

Just press the go button

The EOS-BIOS boot process endeavors to make starting the mainnet and joining the mainnet as a block producer to be as easy as possible. You download the provided scripts, make some small configuration settings specific to the block producer and their server infrastructure, press a button and wake up to an accurate, robust mainnet.

This boot process leaves network security largely to the discretion of the individual block producers and the built in robustness of the EOSIO platform and blockchain technology at large.

Make it indestructible?

You’re not getting inside

The Ghostbusters Testnet boot process uses similar automation with substantially higher security. They propose that all block producers must join a private VPN and share connection details via encrypted channels. The goal here is to prevent bad actors, exploits, and other unsavory attacks against the block producer nodes and the peered network.

While every possible layer of security is encouraged to ensure the most robust and highly available network possible is provided, certain members of the community have expressed concerns that this level of collaboration and secrecy might be exclusionary to future block producing entrants.

What do you think?

Everyone has different ideas and goal for the EOS block chain. We would love to hear your thoughts about the rapid pace of change in these final days prior to version 1.0 and how the community feels about relying on the native protections of the EOSIO code compared to going the extra mile to keep people like this from disrupting the mainnet.

This guy will give your network a bad time