The EOS blockchain has recently come to a halt over a bug in its mainnet that froze transactions, less than 48 hours after reaching a 15 percent voting threshold and going live. The issue brought forth new concerns for EOS holders.
According to updates provided by EOS New York on behalf of the top 21 block producers (BPs) and standby nodes, the cryptocurrency’s $9 billion mainnet network came to an unexpected halt at 9:56 UTC. A mere five minutes later, the top 21 BPs started an international conference call to identify the issue. One hour later, it was decided standby block producers were to stop their nodes and backup blockchain data to avoid losses.
The problem was then identified at 13:03 UTC, which prompted developers to work on a fix that will result in Block.one, the company behind EOS, issuing a patch that’ll be released under the tag 1.0.5 and introduce a nodeos fix.
At 13:28, a new update shed some light on the issue:
“The root cause was due to an issue with how deferred transactions were handled.”
At press time EOS Authority, via Twitter, revealed the mainnet is once again live and that no data has been lost.
The #EOS Mainnet is live again and no data (irreversible transactions) are lost. Excellent response from block producers and block one to find the root cause & fix within a few hours.
— EOS Authority (@EOSauthority) June 16, 2018
While various users applauded block producers for quickly being able to react to the situation, the fact that a $9 billion network’s flaw was taken care of via a conference call between them highlighted to some users just how centralization may be dangerous.
On the cryptocurrency’s subreddit, user DCinvestor wrote:
“This is how cartels are born. Call it FUD if you want, but it's just a plausible analysis of what could happen, and even sooner than potentially expected. Not all cartels outwardly wear a cartel mask.”
The user added that block producers of a decentralized blockchain shouldn’t work together this way, as it “creates an obvious risk of collusion.” The event has taken a toll on EOS’ value, as at press time the cryptocurrency is trading at $10.39 after falling 4.59 percent in the last 24-hour period, according to CryptoCompare.
Notably, EOS’ centralization may see it be classified as a security. As CryptoGlobe covered, a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) spokesperson revealed decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum aren’t securities partly because of their level of decentralization.
