Blockchains are like dinosaurs.

Strong, but slow and expensive  when it comes to doing useful work. In early December, Ethereum was overloaded by a derpy cat game that made it crawl at a snail’s pace. 

If a viral game of fun kittens could bring a dinosaur to its knees, what hope is there for future applications that will reach millions at a time? For blockchains to be adopted for real-word uses, they must solve the problems of speed, scale and cost. 

What makes EOS different?

EOS is designed to meet the following requirements:

Scalablilty
Disrupting businesses such as Facebook, Uber and AirBnB, requires the scale to handle tens of millions of active daily users. Social apps that need the network effect cannot succeed without scale. EOS is easily able to handle scale, as evidenced by its predecessor, STEEM.

Free to use
EOS does not charge fees to users. Apps on current blockchains require users to pay transaction fees to use the applications. EOS is free to use from the users’ perspective and lets developers offer free apps, while monetising in other ways. (Imagine having to pay to use Facebook)

Fast
It only takes an average of 45 seconds to confirm an EOS transaction. A good user experience demands reliable feedback with a delay of no more than a few seconds. Longer delays frustrate users and make applications built on a blockchain less competitive with existing non-blockchain alternatives. 

Easy to code
From a developer's perspective, it is important to create fast, clean code, in a language they are comfortable with. EOS is VM independent, and could theoretically suport Web Assembly (WASM), the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) or any other applicable, sandboxed, VM.

But what about decentralisation?

Where other blockchains are slow, EOS is lean, fast and free. In the same way that dinosaurs had to shed their strength and size, to survive — EOS has had to sacrifice decentralisation to move quickly.  

1. EOS has minimum hardware requirements for each node, meaning that not everyone can participate as a staker.
2. EOS uses Delegated Proof of Stake, which also has the potential for concentrated centers of power.

Blockchain purists balk at the idea of sacrificing decentralisation, but in the end, users just want to play with kittens on the blockchain. If EOS is operational soon, and attracts games and financial applications on its network, it may win the blockchain wars, or carve out a large niche for itself. 

However, if the dinosaurs find a way to remain decentralised and scale to millions of transactions, while being free to use from the customer’s perspective — EOS will have met its match.