Author: Marco González

Editor: Randall Roland

Mainstream media rarely discusses EOS. While Antelope caught a bit of media attention, it didn’t come close to what Ethereum’s partially deployed upgrade grabbed. The EOS Network Foundation’s (ENF) months-long tour targeted at select market sectors expects to change public perception around EOS. Soon, more developers and investors will understand what the new EOS is capable of.

Another factor possibly inhibiting the growth of EOS might be attributed to lingering bad press from the Block.one era. Note that while EOS’ market cap remains stagnant, growth has been spectacular in other areas, particularly core development.

The launch of Antelope marks a crucial advancement for both EOS and blockchain. Lingering sentiment in mainstream media likely takes a decisive turn during the ENF tour. Furthermore, as more aspects of Antelope go live, the whole crypto industry will undoubtedly take notice. There’s simply too much to look forward to.

Lingering sentiment compiled over Block.one’s tenure got so bad at times that some may have come to doubt all things EOS. An EOS informational tour was always in the plans. Informing the public about what EOS can do was identified as a problem area early in the post-Block.one planning. Public perception about recent developments need to be accurate to maximize Antelope’s impact. Afterall, communities are crucial to blockchains, so user needs remain a higher priority than typical software development.

Launching Antelope Leap 3.1 is a demonstration in efficient planning and implementation. Antelope went from idea to live product inside of a year. Albeit, the core community which banded together to oust Block.one had imagined a new EOS far longer.

The lead developer role played by Block.one always seemed to harbor a divided attention. While still acting as a community leader, Block.one aggressively developed Voice and Bullish. The now rebranded B1 team, even went as far as to encourage EOS users to be testers for both platforms prior to all but leaving the ecosystem. When it finally did leave, EOS had virtually no active plan for the future.

Under the leadership of the EOS Network Foundation, the mainnet (and whole ecosystem) has witnessed unparalleled development. Ethereum users will soon find that the ENF develops with them in mind as well. Through the Trust Network (an EOS Ethereum Virtual Machine) users of both ETH and EOS stand to benefit. Trust EVM connects to popular ETH communities. Worth noting is that at one time, EOS and ETH were both among the market cap rankings leaders.

The ENF gave careful thought to seemingly every aspect of the new EOS, including names. The old naming system, EOS (token) and EOSIO (core software) were identified as points of confusion. Antelope replaces the function of EOSIO. Leap is the name given to upgrades (iterations of Antelope) specific for the EOS mainnet. EOS remains the name of the standard token exchanged on the mainnet. Antelope open source code can be adopted by other chains much in the same way that EOSIO was.

Antelope was planned with the whole ecosystem in mind, not just EOS. The Antelope Coalition+ (formerly the EOSIO Coalition+) illustrates the potential of the new open source code. Inspired by the interests and contributions of EOSIO sister blockchains, Coalition+ continues to meet a few times a month to coordinate efforts. For example, the collaborative effort for a cross-chain NFT standard comes directly from the Coalition.

Lastly, and maybe more powerful than anything mentioned above (aside from Antelope) is inter-blockchain communication (IBC). A new crypto reality founded on IBC inspires blockchain developers like few other advancements ever have. Both IBC and an EOS EVM were planned to deploy soon after the Leap 3.1 launch.

To say that EOS’ future is bright is a bit like saying that the Sun can light up a room. The Leap upgrade happened all at once, as opposed to the stages employed by the Ethereum PoS upgrade. Leap is just the beginning. Soon after, an EVM and IBC will connect EOS to a much larger crypto community.

What EOS is doing is light years ahead of maybe anyone else in the crypto space. September 21, 2022 will be remembered as significant date in blockchain history. Users will demand more from their blockchains. Networks will never be the same.