Take The Power Back: The Community Takeover That Brought EOS Independence - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2022

all right thank you everyone for joining us token 2049 um bear Market doesn't look bare to me looks like there's a lot of people here good atmosphere um my name is itai I'm the CEO of market across we are a Tel Aviv Israel based PR agency uh um and I'm delighted to be with Eve please Eve tell everybody about yourself with you as well too close I need a bit more room a little bit too close yeah there there we go all right cool yeah so excited to be here as well it's pretty amazing the energy is is great this is massive cool so tell everyone a bit about yourself and what is eos Network Foundation uh so my name is Eva Rose uh I am the CEO and founder of the EOS Network Foundation uh essentially the EOS Network Foundation is the steward of the EOS Network it was created a year ago uh by reached by consensus by the token holders by the block producers the node validators essentially all the stakeholders on the network uh to uh essentially Shepherd the network and kind of catch up what we lost over a couple of years of inaction uh within EOS cool we're going to talk a bit about that so for full disclosure we actually work with you guys we're your agency and I want to actually start from the beginning so we met about a year or something ago that's right we got on a first call um and in a place of blatant honesty I told you that I don't really like EOS um and yeah yeah we had a good conversation and then he looked at me and said to be honest I don't like EOS right now as well um so tell us a bit about that like tell us a bit of History whoever doesn't know a bit of the story um and how do we get here so I mean EOS was four years ago when the maintenance launched uh one of the Rising Stars one of the shining stars uh in the ecosystem largest Ico to date 4.1 billion dollars quite massive a lot of Promise um of what it would be able to do how it'd be able to scale gen 3 layer 1 blockchain at a time when there really weren't any others and uh tons of expectations I think on the network uh fast forward a couple of years the what most people don't know is that the Ico funds went to a private entity didn't go to the EOS Community didn't go to the development of EOS in large part and so for a period of about three years we saw an exodus of uh people developers communities uh you know basically stakeholders in the ecosystem that came to EOS because they had you know there was something there he also attracted a lot of people first of all very first to Market I think one of the biggest discussed base layers right out of after ethereum there were maybe Neo or whatever but very first to Market no there was no Solana there was no clay yeah very different time yeah very different time and there was so much good energy in the space at the time the community was massive developer Community was massive and what we saw is that over a period of roughly three three and a half years or so the funding that went through the Ico really didn't make it back into the hands of the ecosystem in the way that it was envisioned uh at the time and so there was an exodus of people and last year when you and I met as you say this was quite a common theme that we were hearing uh when we launched the foundation and we were going out to Partners EOS is either dead or was an EOS a scam like those are the two big things that we were hearing and we knew that we had a massive I guess load on our plate in order to change turn things around and uh the foundation that they basically like I said the EOC the the EOS ecosystem came together the tech was always strong the the underlying Tech was incredible but what was missing was developer engagement Community engagement Brands being sent out to the the community basically everything that everybody else now in this space is doing extremely well EOS just basically died out and so like you said I was also the public Center was bearish it was probably it was bad it was quite toxic within EOS it was toxic outside of the OS and there really was you know very little to do and this the idea of creating the foundation was very much a Hail Mary okay and today you guys are celebrating one year of Independence what is that what is independence how did we get here so one year ago we created the EOS Network Foundation uh myself and Zach Gaul as a co-founder right here in front and we knew that we had a large amount of work on our plate to essentially Rebrand what EOS was he also had a very strong core Tech stack but it was missing everything else fast forward a year we were able to put in place the Frameworks and the processes that essentially attracted people to EOS four years ago in the first place it took us roughly years as you said we just celebrated our independence last week while I was in South Korea we just had a hard Fork whereby now the community which really EOS really embodies web 3 Spirit where the community took back essentially the power from corporate interests and we started developing the core stack again we now are full control of our IP full control of the tech stack itself and uh basically a year on we've now stabilized what essentially should have happened four years ago so we have everything in place that should have been there four years ago one of the advantages is that we were able to look at a lot of the competitors other layer ones out there that have been doing tremendous work they've been really you know doing some really good work in this space how they were doing it what were they focusing on what worked well but more importantly what didn't work out for them and so we're able to really shorten that that time space uh in order to catch up stabilize the ecosystem get our independence which just happened I mean on chain last week and then set us up for the next year of operations okay so I'm gonna follow up on that looking retrospectively after two three years of I would say a bit of quiet on the U.S front you have the possibility of looking at other chains that use the time that you guys weren't active to do a lot of different actions what are you guys doing differently um learning what other people have done and where do you think EOS could have been without that without that period of I would say quiet let's put it that way it's a good question one of the things that EOS did very bad or didn't do I would say it's it's not even that they they they didn't do it well is that they were not doing was all the funds that went from the Ico went into a private entity and the community was left fundless essentially it had no way to support itself financially and one of the things that we've seen other l1s have been doing extremely well are creating Partnerships basically working with others in the space do you put yourself back four years ago at the main that long there was so many expectations on EOS EOS in a way kind of fell victim to its own success because of the token sale and a lot of people within the space also thought they were better than everybody else didn't cure cancer you know not cure cancer you also thought that it was better than everybody else and so it didn't actually create Partnerships with others and we see especially now that creating relationships within the space Bridges evm is a really great example those are those those are around the trustees yeah those yeah that's our Flagship product um those are things that basically everybody else did extremely well that EOS did not do I called it the reverse onion EOS started off and it basically was playing in its own sandbox EOS was kind of like the kid that never went to kindergarten that never learned to make friends which is so important in this space so too cool for school too cool for school so it's just doing its own thing on its own the tech was gonna be awesome it was gonna you know dominate everything else when in reality sure it had some good things going for it on the on the tech front especially but a lot of other things it just it didn't have and so that's what we've been doing in the last year more so specifically is creating the ecosystem within EOS creating Grant Frameworks creating uh developing developer funding mechanisms Community funding mechanisms if there's one thing that EOS did really bad was even to communicate inside of its own Community what it's doing where is it going EOS didn't have a road map after the Ico after the white paper essentially it didn't have any road map where are we going if you wanted to get involved in EOS how could you get involved the block validation it was already there you know if you don't know where we're going how can you actually participate how can you help and then once you actually figure out where we're going and where maybe you can help how perhaps could you access funding or how can you get involved those simple let's say funding Frameworks were just completely non-existent and so in that last year basically we celebrated her one year at the end of August and the Independence was last week where we really we did a hard Fork that first year was all about stabilizing the ecosystem so we created Grant Frameworks we created mechanisms for the communities to access funding to access it's not just the funding support it's the non-funding support that we've seen is is really lacking in this space as a whole one thing that we see recurring is that teams are very strong at developing what they're missing is the non-financial support program management project management legal marketing branding all the other things that actually make your project come to life Venture building it is really important and so a big part of what we're doing obviously is the funding side of things we've deployed roughly 40 million dollars in the last year direct back into the hands of the community but also ensuring that we Empower them so that once they receive the funding and we we essentially make a bet on them that if that function were to be created if it does come about it could create value for the ecosystem that we support them alongside that to ensure that they they reach that that value creation what else do they need in order to attain that goal so a lot of hand-holding in that sense and so it's a much larger framework how did you get involved in EOS in the first place like what's your story how how did the bearded Samurai get into crypto and what white years I started in crypto in 2010 mining Bitcoin a long time ago and I left the space uh when the first Bitcoin miners were rumored to come about they weren't even out yet uh and I kind of kept within like a an arms laying distance of the space but I wasn't full time in it until 2016 came back into space started delegating a lot more time into it and I love to use the word delegating 2017 everybody knows crypto summer it was quite massive there was a lot of hype again this was the time that that during that bull run that essentially the space would be opening up to web 2. this was at the time the idea was it's now going to go mainstream or there's gonna be a lot more real world use cases adaptability adoptability coming about and when I was going through the projects one by one I was going down the list and it was reading every white paper read the EOS white paper and I saw a lot of potential there the what EOS was promising to build how they were going to build it the one billion dollar fund commitment the community that was backing up EOS at the time everything was just it was amazing it was if if you were there at that time is incredible it's kind of like the energy that we're seeing here today and I fell for it I essentially I bought into this dream that EOS was great the Kool-Aid definitely drank the Kool-Aid out of anybody else probably drank the most Kool-Aid which is probably why now I created the foundation and at what point did you wake up and say Houston we have a problem at what point did you go and say all right I understand it but there's something in the framework that's happening here that there's a problem and then we need to do something the thing is eos through that link a year-long Ico is incredibly decentralized the the token sale really ensured the way that it was done with the reverse Dutch auction really ensured that the token distribution was quite widespread uh EOS is still listed on roughly 180 exchanges and so it's it's very decentralized and if anything the idea was that block one the centralized entity that that did the Ico would be effectively the foundation so there was also a token vesting for them to ensure that they would remain involved for a period of 10 years and so I think everybody thought that that was the role that they were going to play and not only did we think that that's that's what they were portraying and that's what they were projecting as well and so over I'd say the first year or two that idea was still prevalent but we were starting to see signs of maybe that's not the case but maybe it was being added but what was being told is it was that right so the commitments were still coming you had a lot of developers coming into the space deploying Capital to build businesses and this entity was effectively still saying we're gonna be playing our role but we're facing challenges but just trust us it's coming soon soon and every time the community in a very decentralized fashion was coming together to try and you know move things forward essentially was being squashed it was being told listen if you do this we'll let you do it but we'll be ready more there's going to be ramifications it's going to be legal ramifications whatever it may be and we just bought into it every single time I guess so I guess we just need to wait a little bit longer it's gonna come it's coming soon it's coming soon and after a while of you know the same pattern repeating over and over and over the you have to put yourself back at that time as well the community comes together because it's so decentralized to actually reach consensus on anything is very difficult and so you get all of this momentum building up towards you know coming together as a community and saying okay let's do this and when ultimately you don't you know pull the plug or once you don't pull the trigger sorry that that momentum is lost you lose a lot of people a lot of people lose Faith a lot of people basically leave and that happened on so many occasions that the momentum being built each subsequent occasion gets smaller and smaller and you get more of a disenfranchised Community it becomes more toxic it by then it becomes obvious that you know what this is a scam it's not happening while also at the same time having the project that at the same time is running the most amount of transactions out of any other blockchain for the full year we're doing in a one single day and we're doing every single day and we're surmounting these challenges as a community at the time I was a thought producer the committee is developing the tech stack but you're saying that you don't feel the communities being running the infrastructure running the nodes essentially doing its part of responsibilities and that part is doing well but the underlying foundations that are supposed to be maintained by this other player you know we're starting to see gaps in there we're starting to see holes of maybe the interests aren't aligned so how did that initial conversation like well the first conversation was like all right we need to actually do something when did it become from like part of my French from bitching around to to saying all right let's do something let's create a framework let's take the power back walk me through that a bit so we had gone uh in we held an EOS Community Conference in Rio in 2019 and the community had come together reached consensus on deploying a WPS a worker proposal system effectively the network was going to be funding development through a process uh that it developed and refined over a period of time and there was consensus on that during that period of time was the last time when the entity essentially said if you do this we're out so the community stopped this entity said listen if you if you do if you do this we're gonna stop but if you wait for us we're working on something we'll be able to partner together it's going to be even more massive and essentially the interest will be aligned we bought the quickly that was the last time we bought the Kool-Aid that got squash very little happened everything was really really slowed down and uh you know a lot of community left at that time a lot of developers left a lot of the community a lot of the businesses stakeholders that was the last straw for a lot of people and fast forward a year about a year and a half after that we had an opportunity again uh once we saw and really the last straw I guess was GitHub because every other commitment you could subjectively say that was being done but it wasn't creating value that's subjective one thing that wasn't subjective was GitHub the maintenance of the core code stock in June 2021 and trying to find the year June 2021 basically went dark zero you can see it it's basically goes to zero and that was the last pillar that uh that really kind of struck the final chord of if this doesn't happen if the community doesn't come together it's done why did you leave there's three years why didn't you as Eve say I'm gonna move on to the next thing there's all right this is a dud it didn't work out cut my losses why stay the underlying Tech the underlying product is real it's ins it's it's insane how good it is it's insane how we've perfected it over the last three and a half years where some of the layer ones right now are facing challenges that we solved two and a half years ago you didn't put a restart button we didn't put a restart button at the time and that's effectively what the foundation was about and so there was this idea that there's something there this has so much potential and the parts that are missing are somewhat easily solvable like it's really not that difficult there's a lot of work to do but there's a path to Victory there's actually something there and if somehow we can leverage the side of things that's missing that's you know relatively easy in the sense that there's a there's there's common known Frameworks around that that if we can actually do that part and time over time again basically I was in the in the midst of things as a Blog producer we're one of the top ranking block producers my previous entity and so we were in the juice and we could see that if we just do this if we just do this and that last straw like I said with GitHub essentially going dark was the was the final straw I'd actually resigned from my previous uh entity and during that two-month period I had a lot of reflection that I was able to do and stakeholders were reaching out talking those were reaching out developers were reaching out that no validators were reaching out you're the right person you need to lead a foundation if anything EOS is too decentralized we need centralization we need a steward we need an entity that can actually coordinate the ecosystem because that's what we're missing all right so let's use the last 10 minutes we we did the past we did that let's talk future we had a year of Independence run us through what you think EOS was able to do in the past year and what's the next year going to look like so we've effectively stabilized the ecosystem in the sense that we are now owners of the repo we just hard forked last week we now run we rebranded the previous software stack as well it's now called Antelope we've formed coalitions with other chains that were also leveraging Antelope so we now have the antelope Coalition with other partners Telex wax ux and EOS we put a treasury in place to be able to actually develop the software not only maintain it which we've been doing closed out all issues but we've also then deployed funding towards what happens the next couple of years we've deployed road maps we've deployed a lot of funding like I said earlier in terms of of Frameworks for developer funding for Community funding we've effectively done everything that we should have been doing we fast tracked that for the last year year two is all about growth so we're working on trusty them that's deploying in a couple of months essentially we're now refining the process so that we can have block maps how hard was that to get the eo's community to go and say we actually need to adopt the ethereum framework and mechanism in any format relatively easy I think if you would have asked the same question a few years back the community wasn't in a situation where they were open to uh kind of looking externally and that that definitely hurt the community but now people recommend that's that partnership concept of like being in being you know like the future other people are actually doing some really good stuff there's a lot of tremendous work being done out there and being able to leverage that being able to partner with others being able to actually build Bridges is what this is all about I can't agree more I think that the interoperability is not only a technical thing it's also the end of crypto tribalism the first years of crypto you know it was like these mini Cults this person is a Jesus and this person is the devil because he thinks the block size is different or whatever so for you you feel like EOS has a much more open Future now definitely EOS is in that space where not only did it you know within its own committee start mending Bridges within the antelope Community started Building Bridges now we're at a stage where we're now forming Partnerships with other foundations we're building Tech like IBC not only internally to the Antelope uh Coalition which is the software stack that that EOS essentially manages and runs but with the others as well farming Partnerships there to point Capital towards the growth of that Tech stack then forming Partnerships externally so that we can build Bridges with other foundations with other teams with basically other other projects that are building some really cool stuff because most the community what we see right now they don't particularly care where they deploy of course it's nice of course there's you know there's different flavors what might what might be better a better right fit for them but ultimately they want to access more people more stakeholders larger communities they just want to open up their product to everybody they want to focus their Pro on their product and they want everybody to be able to use it and we have a role to play in there by being able to build those bridges so that essentially we can we can lay the roadways we can lay the pavement so that everybody can come and Leverage The the fact that essentially the tech stack the again exchange adoption the brand notoriety so today when you do talk to DAP developers that have already deployed or pre-deployment what's what's your pitch why EOS today no pass no history no whatever today cleat slate why choose you he also is there to support you not only does EOS now uh control its own future its own destiny it has the mechanisms in place that have been built over the last year that are tried testing true because we've been able to leverage on the shoulder of giants that have done this before us those are in place they're not theoretical so if I would have been here last year I would have talked about everything that we were going to do but that we didn't have in place we're now fortunate to be able to be here and say look at everything we've done these systems are already in place they're already functional they're already scalable we've already deployed funding towards this essentially they're already running here you go you can get support here and then we also have the team inside of the foundation to be able to help support you on the non-financial side of things to be able to leverage your growth in the future and what we're seeing in terms of reception from the community from either from VCS or from developer is from basically all types of stakeholders and there's they're seeing that EOS is open for business again that now people can come and help Leverage The Tech stack and everything that was there from you know four years ago with a network that effectively has been running for four years with literally zero downtime we were for a period of time running 125 million transactions per day to put that in perspective that was all that Still Remains all of all other networks combined in one shot so a lot of the scaling issues that people are facing we've resolved and everything is open source we would gladly work with others to get them to be able to scale everybody's got a different way of doing this that's actually a good question so you guys we need to help each other out you built a good open source depository and you see projects taking that open source and building their own EO Scio style stuff but it's not under your I would say Tech stack is that is that good for Eos is that bad for us is that at least validation that you're on the right path there's definitely a balance but over overall I think we embrace it and I think it's very positive for others to be able to see the power of the software and to be able to then have an in if even if that's their own and just like evm that's your first point of entry and then you can see the power that underlies this this product and that you see that it's real and then you get the other resources to become and and help you it's kind of that way in to be able to open the doors effectively and so I see it as a mechanism to open doors I see it as a mechanism to build Bridges which I think are really important that like you said the crypto tribalism we're seeing that change as well we're seeing that the future is very much multi-chain and we we are part of that and we want to be more part of that of course yeah I think we've seen crypto now a bit more of a decentralization ethos when it comes to also the star CEOs and figures no need to go into names EOS had their figure other chains had their figures and we're seeing now that a lot of them maybe they just made enough money but they're stepping down from the Limelight and it's being a lot more by I would say four developers by Developers so is that the underlying is the message the future is multi-chain and EOS is open for business for sure if there's anything is that EOS the old EOS is not the new EOS there's definitely a reinvigored uh Community uh there's funding there's a non-financial support EOS is open for business come and join the new EOS for sure and for people here um that want to learn more get more involved other than of course following on Discord or telegram or whatever how can people get more involved what what what actions can I would say devs and non-devs take to educate themselves a bit more all of the information can be found on eosnetwork.com if you go there if you're a developer there's a tech section uh you can go and apply through the grant framework you can go and see not only do we publish the roadmap we actually did a lot of research which we call the blue papers last year as one of the first things we did to establish here are things that others have done that might be good for us to do here's some base research on that here base cost estimates here's like the the general kind of RFP for this are you able to actually take this on so we've got tons of items on there for people to come about all that is public all the grant framework is public as well so everything that we do very public very transparent very easy for others to come and get involved and see how you fit in one of our largest kpis is to see in the shortest amount of time if you want to get involved in EOS what can you do so it's to basically find your ego guy what can you do what what's your skill set that potentially we can leverage that you can get funded for if we can find this in the shortest amount of time as possible then effectively we can grow the community much faster than what we were doing in previous years all right so last question if we're here next year hopefully everyone will join us the event will be 10 times bigger Bitcoins at 10 billion or whatever um what's victory for you for us I think it's a recognition that Yas never left that EOS is still very much alive and that there's there's a home essentially that there's a home for developers there's a home for all types of stakeholders to be able to come and see and leverage the power that EOS has for essentially what we we believe is going to happen is a shift between web 2 and web 3 in the next large Market we think that the mainstream adoption is going to come a lot from that game five space we think that it's going to come a lot from traditional developers that essentially want to have the web 2 experience on web 3 and EOS is ready for that all right perfect um so I'm gonna do something a lot of people do we're going to finish 50 seconds before a time all right Eve thank you very much thank you everyone for joining us thank you everybody