So.
I really got into cryptocurrency for the first time December 2016. Like most people, I started out only being aware of Bitcoin and thus only exploring that particular crypto. Over time, I grew more fascinated and delved deeper into the cryptocurrency space as a whole. I learned of Dash (anonymity-focused, stable as cryptos go), Monero (even more anonymous), Ripple (centralized, a little too closely tied to the banks we're trying to get away from in the first place), Golem (so cheap that I could buy a lot of it even with my limited resources and hope for a miracle. Also, somethingsomethingdistributedcomputingscoughcough) and so on and so on.
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But by April or so of 2017, Ethereum had become my favourite cryptocurrency because, unlike most the others, the crypto part seemed almost a pleasant ... side-effect? I mean, don't get me wrong, I was of course drawn to the profit possibilities of the so-called Bitcoin killer. More than that though, the Ethereum blockchain told a cool story (non-anonymous teen genius Vitalik Buterin, instant geek-cool-cachet!) and talked a good game about "smart contracts" and a new world of trust-optional honesty and then the UN adopted it for their charity initiative and the Modanfil people started accepting it (seriously, why does no one talk about this?) and then there was Project Ethereum. Won't get into that.
As time went on, news of various Ethereum-killers drifted by (Antshares! Golem! Etcetera!) I joined Steemit. Discovered the joys and wonders of Steem. Then the ICOS. Then came EOS.
So. What the heck is EOS? This (already over-long, sorry) post is basically me trying to answer that question in layman's terms for my own understanding. EOS is a open-source smart-contract blockchain platform that uses Delegated Proof-of-Stake instead of Proof-of-Work as "mined" coins do and "Proof-Of-Stake" as Ethereum is shifting towards in the near-ish future. Aside from that, its major strength is that it is scaleable to a degree that neither Bitcoin nor Ethereum is currently capable of managing i.e. lots more transactions per unit time. It permits the creation of decentralized applications by businesses to serve ... whatever purpose they need a decentralized application for, I guess?
In essence, if ETC is Ethereum Classic, EOS is Ethereum Perfect.
To go further, I think we need to know what Proof of Stake is. PoS is essentially a method of mining that has certain users of the currency in question stake large blocks of it (essentially like a CD or a fixed deposit account) and the "interest" produced thereof (based on the inflation rate?) is then the source of new ETH. An obvious flaw of this mechanism is that it can easily get centralized by some whale locking up huge amounts of ETH and controlling pretty much the entire blockchain. I assume there are solutions for this since I'm not a billionaire cryptocoin creator genius.
EOS takes this one step further by going Delegate Proof of Stake which eliminates that issue by allowing large numbers of smaller users to delegate their respective stakes to make a bigger (in effect) voting bloc? And adds a feature where there's a maximum number of block producers and they keep getting rotated because popular newbies get into that exclusive group by a relative number of votes rather than absolute. Clever. Much like Steem.
More on this later. I open the floor to questions and corrections. Thanks for reading.