EOS Is Launched But Not Yet Live

Visit any EOS Telegram channel and some version of this question will pop up again and again: Is the mainnet live yet?

While the EOS blockchain technically launched on June 10 at 13:00 UTC, the answer to that question is effectively no.

One's $4 billion EOS initial coin offering are locked up until the network elects 21 "Block producers", and as that still hasn't happened, currently no one can start using EOS just yet.

Staking tokens allows EOS holders to vote for up to 30 block producers - the groups in charge of verifying transactions - and votes are weighted by how many tokens are staked.

Many members of the EOS community speculate it's a handful of different precautions investors are taking before staking their EOS tokens - hesitation by holders that have a large quantity of EOS, the lack user-friendly tools, security concerns and general prudence.

Steve Floyd of EOS Tribe, an EOS block producer candidate, believes some of the whales are already trying to swing it their way.

Plus, some of the biggest EOS wallets are cryptocurrency exchanges that are holding EOS tokens for their users.

Some exchanges have committed to building tools for their users to vote with, but CoinDesk was not able to determine at press time whether or not votes from exchanges were hitting EOS yet.

EOS tokens are mostly frozen until the mainnet launch because most tokens are sitting in EOS wallets.

That's because once the first slate of block producers are elected, each account will go live on EOS with all but 10 of their tokens staked.