Pulling a crowd

So I've just come back home from the EOS London meet-up. I had a choice of going to the post Meetup drinks in the pub or coming home and doing a post/ vlog, I choose the latter.

What can I say about this meet-up.

Firstly the turn-out was very impressive. There must have been around 200-300 people in the venue. And why not. EOS has been on a tear (price-wise) recently. On top of that, there was free alcohol . Although it was a ticketed event, I was able to get in without my ticket, so I imagine there were a fair few people there to take advantage of the free booze.

That said, most people stuck about for the talks.

Short commercial break

The first speaker was actually the event sponsor. He chatted about some crypto-trading solution his company were offering. Naturally they were doing an ICO... at which point I switched off.

Major Player

The most intriguing talk came from Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of Bitfinex. Things I found out that I didn't know before

• Bitfinex were an early investor in block.one
• 'apparently' Bitfinex block producer candidacy is because 'it is fun for them'; and they're happy not to be a block producer (and presumably disband their 'military grade' data center) should it be a problem for the community... hmm let's see.
• EOSfinex development will start in August 2018
• Bitfinex plan to open source their UI within the next year
• Bitfinex will not use customers EOS to vote for themselves. They will create a voting tool to allow people that hold EOS on their exchange to vote for any of the top 30 Block Producers.... Psst - don't leave your money on exchanges!
• Bitfinex are hiring C++ devs and are willing to contribute to EOS core

It seems (for better or worse), Bitfinex will be a major player in the EOS ecosystem. Whether this is a good thing or not will hinge (for me) on EOSfinex and whether they build out a genuine decentralised Exchange that is fast, user-friendly, can scale and have little/ no fees.

Legal disclaimer

Next up was Ian Grigg and Eva Stowe. I've heard Ian speak on governance before, at the last EOS meetup I went to last year. They spoke about the unreliability (for businesses) of 'unpermissioned' chains like Bitcoin and the walled gardens of 'permissioned' blockchains. With EOS being the middle ground; a blockchain for business with rules and free entry (using DPOS).

Personally I wouldn't oversell the governance of DPOS. While it is nice to know that in principle "the community" decides on block producers, stake-weighed voting means that (de facto) large token holders hold the keys to block production. While it is amusing to listen to Block Producers conduct hustings to anyone that will listen, ultimately to be a block producer you need to appeal to whales if they want to be in the top 21 witnesses. Whilst I think the year long token distribution will produce decent spread of holders; invariably EOS will have whales, like any other token. Those whales will decide on block producers based on whoever they feel brings the most value to their investment.

EOS thermometer

I like going to meet-ups and being a fly on the wall, gauging the temperature of a coin. I have to say there is a buzz around EOS. The talks could have done with being a bit more sexy. Block Producers and Governance are not sexy. They are the 'back office' to the applications that will either make or break the platform.

I guess we're going to have to wait until after the launch to find out what EOS is really about however judging from tonight it is definitely one to watch.