Fed Up and Forking: Rival EOS Blockchains Are Becoming a Reality

Horn thought he could do better, and recently authored a white paper for Telos, a fork of the open-source protocol behind EOS called EOSIO. And his is just one of several groups that have decided to take the software, tweak it and set up a new network.

Several of its team members were involved in the EOS launch, and in more than one case, those people are helping build Telos while continuing to support the EOS network.

"We think the cross-pollination will benefit both Telos and EOS," said a team working as Keten.io on Telos and Dutch EOS on the mainnet.

According to Horn, Telos' launch could come as soon as next month, with the aims to make two significant changes to the EOS that exists today: curtail the power of the largest token holders known as "Whales" and launch with more solidified governance mechanisms that can be enforced directly on the blockchain.

According to the Telos white paper, 1.6 percent of EOS holders own 90 percent of the tokens.

To reduce the influence of these heavyweights, Telos will distribute its TLOS tokens to EOS investors according to the original "Snapshot," but with one big difference: it will lop off any holdings above 40,000, a move that Horn said would affect just 0.63 percent of accounts.

EOS Nation, a standby block producer, has begun testing a system for conducting referendums, according to a roadmap published in July, but EOS users still have no ability to propose or vote on protocol changes.

While Telos' own constitution has not been finalized, Horn emphasized that "Bullshit that's unenforceable" won't appear in it, such as the EOS constitution's provision that "Members shall not initiate violence or the threat of violence against another member."

Despite his criticisms of EOS, Horn stressed that EOSIO is a "Worthwhile" project, and acknowledged that he and others now building Telos were themselves involved in the EOS launch.

Discounting the occasional accusation of theft or communism, the EOS community has been broadly accepting of Telos - and other forks - giving EOSIO another go.