Produced | Odaily (ID: o-daily)

Produced | Odaily (ID: o-daily)

The last project that attracted attention due to mainnet congestion was Ethercat and Ethereum in 2017. Almost no one could have expected that with a financing of 4 billion US dollars, EOS, known as the strongest public chain, would be stuck in a small airdrop.

Some people say that EIDOS did not contribute to the ecology, but exposed the lies of EOS; some people think that EOS in this incident is a joke, and BM should seriously consider modifying the resource design of EOS.

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Wool mining is booming, crushing the network and driving up the CPU

On November 3rd, only two days before the official start of the EIDOS airdrop.

A Weibo post by HelloEOS Zi Cen revealed an astonishing number: the number of EIDOS smart contract transactions in 24 hours is about 9.17 million, and the peak value is nearly 620,000 per hour. During the same period, the DApp with the largest 24-hour transaction volume on ETH was only 4132 times.

Based on this data alone, EIDOS is worthy of being included in the history of EOS.

EIDOS is known as a zero-cost airdrop. The rule is that users can transfer any amount of EOS to the project account eidosonecoin, and then the smart contract will return the same amount of EOS and give away 0.01% of the EIDOS in the eidosonecoin account for free. The total circulation of EIDOS is 1 billion, and 800 million are used for airdrops. According to the rules, 25 EIDOS are generated per second, and the airdrop will last for 15 months.

On the other hand, what is more attractive is that EIDOS comes from AP, the founder of Avocado, the first airdrop project in the currency circle.

At 4 pm on November 1st, the airdrop officially started.

The zero-cost method of collecting wool instantly attracted a large number of wool party members, and they began to frequently transfer funds to the accounts of the EIDOS project party.

Some wallets have also spotted the opportunity of EIDOS to acquire customers. For example, mykey and TokenPocket have launched EIDOS mining machines to provide users with EIDOS automatic transfer mining services. Although there is no real mining, transferring money to obtain airdrops is also regarded as a mining behavior, so users who frequently transfer money in order to obtain airdrops are also collectively referred to as "miners".

In a short period of time, hundreds of thousands or even millions of users initiated transaction applications to the EOS chain.

Dappreview data shows that on November 1, the number of transactions on EIDOS exceeded 5.4 million. Of course, this was just the beginning. In the next few days, the number of EIDOS transactions increased. On November 2, the number of EIDOS transactions exceeded 10 million, and on November 3 it almost exceeded 15 million.

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A game with a pre-determined outcome

How did EIDOS collapse the EOS network with one click?

This also starts with the resource design of EOS.

Different from the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, the EOS network claims to have zero Gas fees. As long as you have a certain number of tokens, you can use a certain percentage of network resources for free.

At present, the three main resources in the EOS system are: network bandwidth resources (NET), CPU computing resources (CPU), and running memory resources (RAM). Among them, CPU is one of the most important core consumption resources for users to transfer funds.

There are two ways for users to obtain CPU, one is to obtain CPU by pledging a certain percentage of EOS; the other is to rent other people's idle CPU resources through a third-party leasing platform.

Then why is the CPU resource congested?

In fact, in the EOS network, the number of CPU resource allocation obtained through pledge fluctuates in real time.

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(picture from MEETONE)

That is to say, when the number of EOS pledged to replace CPU resources in the EOS network suddenly increases, the user's available CPU resources will decrease.

In this EIDOS token airdrop event, if you want to continuously obtain free airdrops, you have to continuously transfer money to the project party’s account, which requires a steady stream of CPU resource support.

What happens when CPU resources are insufficient? When the available CPU in the user's hands continues to "depreciate", the user may overuse the CPU at any time. If the CPU in an account is 100% exhausted, it will no longer be able to initiate transactions, and the account will also face the risk of deactivation at any time.

When everyone is frantically collecting money through transfers, without a CPU, you can't do anything.

But no one will just watch the fat slip away from their noses. In order to continue mining, the wool party began to mortgage a large amount of EOS in exchange for CPU, and even purchased resources from rental markets such as REX.

As the number of users mortgaging EOS in exchange for CPUs on the entire network continues to increase, the number of CPUs available to users is still shrinking, and at the same time, the price of CPUs is also rising.

A vicious cycle in which CPU resources are becoming more and more scarce and CPU prices are becoming more and more expensive has begun.

Although the previous DApp mining wave also experienced a famine of CPU resource shortages, DAppTotal reported that the madness of EIDOS is beyond imagination, and it has far surpassed Dice, HashBaby and other projects that have dominated the EOS DApp ecosystem for a long time.

Experienced people have already seen through the essence behind this. Some netizens gave an analysis: Behind the CPU famine brought about by this airdrop, those who rented the CPU for a lot of money at the first time made a steady profit.

The developer Qiu Xiaoshan also holds a similar view. He believes that this seemingly 1.5-year-long EIDOS distribution game actually decided the winner on the first day: "This game is actually not 0 roll , but the competition of CPU computing power. On November 1st, the rental ratio of REX was 20%, and now it is 80%. The price of CPU increases exponentially with this ratio, so if you rent the CPU on the first day, you will win .”

"On the first day (by leasing the CPU), the miners paid back their capital in one day, and the rest are profits, which can be 0 for 29 days. Others are so lively, they are all running with them. Later miners worked hard, digging every day, In the end, they may not even be able to pay back their capital." Qiu Xiaoshan said.

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The city gate catches fire, which affects the fish in the pond

The project that advertised the utilization of EOS idle resources eventually became the culprit for preempting the resources of the EOS main network. Ordinary users on the EOS chain became the first "victims".

According to PeckShield data, 80% of the transactions on the EOS mainnet on November 1st were related to this airdrop, and the EOS accounts of ordinary users could not transfer funds and use DApp normally because they did not have enough CPU.

"Because in fact, because of the relatively small transaction volume before, a large number of users thought that 0.1 EOS was enough to mortgage, but with the increase in transaction volume, this amount is far from enough." Developer Qiu Xiaoshan further analyzed this to the Odaily reporter. in the reason.

Not only that, but at the moment when the CPU is exhausted, no matter how much EOS you have in your wallet, you cannot save yourself.

"Currently, there are only two ways to get enough CPU. One is to pay for the CPU through legal currency through the CPU leasing service provider; the other is to use other accounts or friends to help." Qiu Xiaoshan analyzed.

In essence, the resource model of EOS is like a highway, as long as you are willing to pay, all transactions will become very fast.

Qiu Xiaoshan believes that the current EOS is actually not blocked at all, but EOS transactions are very expensive, so many users cannot initiate transactions.

This is indeed the case, and people are indeed very concerned about the network fee rate: "I have not successfully sold coins for several days, and the consumption of leased resources may be higher than the gas fee."

"When Ethereum is congested, the transaction fee is low and the waiting time is low. If you spend more transaction fee, you can transfer the money earlier, and if EOS really meets the enthusiasm for obsessing with cats at that time, it is estimated that the transfer cost will be extremely high." Analysis by an industry insider road.

If there are a few more EIDOS projects in the EOS network, perhaps everyone will have to adapt to the fact that for a long period of time in the future, the amount of EOS that needs to be pledged to consume CPU for on-chain transfers may be far higher than the amount of EOS transferred itself.

After this surprise test, the performance of EOS disappointed a lot of people, and some people even commented: "EOS's million TPS is a joke, and the appearance of EIDOS proves how rubbish EOS is." .”

Project parties on EOS have become another wave of "victims" in this CPU famine farce.

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(picture from dapptotal)

Not only that, from the perspective of the overall EOS DApp data, the 24-hour daily activities, 24-hour transaction volume, and 24-hour transaction times of each DApp in the past few days are almost all red.

(Screenshot from dapptotal)

A meager profit-making wool game has pulled other project parties into the water, which has also caused practitioners to complain: "In such a network situation, who will rest assured to put their projects on EOS in the future? It is really too much for other project parties. Not responsible anymore."

The congestion of EOS network resources has not been alleviated, but has intensified.

At the current price, 1 EOS can be leased for 154 EOS for 30 days in REX. However, at 18:00 on November 4th, all the EOS in the EOS REX fund pool has been rented out. The lessor cannot sell REX in time to redeem EOS, and the tenant cannot rent cheap CPU through REX to use the DApp on the chain.

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To become a blockchain 3.0 public chain, EOS still has a long way to go

Of course, the prosperity of EIDOS is unsustainable, and almost everyone is doing one-off transactions.

In the secondary market, miners are also constantly shipping. From the perspective of currency prices, due to the lack of very strong support, the secondary market of EIDOS is also mediocre.

According to data from the Matcha Exchange, EIDOS reached a peak of around 0.3 USDT on the first day of trading, and then fell all the way. The currency price has recovered in the past two days, but it has never returned to the high point. As of press time, it was reported at 0.0557 USDT.

Even so, the carnival has brought a lot of reflection.

Self-media blogger Blockchain William commented: "The setting of EOS resources is still not good. When no one is using the resources, the resources are cheap, but once someone uses them and a little more people, the price of the resources will skyrocket."

Today, the story of EOS’s zero transaction fee seems to only make sense in an uncongested network.

"EIDOS vividly reflects a problem, that is, any public chain boasting TPS and low handling fees is useless." Yin Hang, the core developer of BTG, believes that any chain will eventually form a handling fee market. It is not a matter of resource design. Any design , and ultimately cannot avoid cost marketization. It's just that the result of marketization is in conflict with the high TPS and low fees advertised by many chains.

"Behind any resource design is the balance of supply and demand, and the handling fee must be market-oriented, but people don't believe it. They tout expansion + low handling fee, and now they have found a negative example." Yin Hang said.

At the time of raising $4 billion in financing, almost everyone thought that EOS might be the 3.0 of the blockchain. This actual combat has made people start to reflect that EOS is still a long way from "public chain 3.0".

As a node member, Gao Feng, the founder of MEETONE, admitted the flaws in EOS resource design: "EOS resource settings are indeed flawed, and it is very easy to wake up the CPU congestion mode."

Gao Feng further explained that in order to encourage peak-staggered operation, EOS has designed a mechanism for the dynamic change of CPU peaks and valleys: "It's just that the current threshold is set too low, and it is very easy to wake up the peak state. But this can be adjusted by adjusting the parameters. fixed."

This design has been analyzed in detail in an article on the MEETONE official account: In idle mode, you can borrow someone else's CPU, and the allocated CPU is 1000 times larger than in congestion mode. When the system is "congested", the original calculation The pledge ratio is used. When the average CPU usage per block over the past minute is greater than max_block_cpu_usage * target_block_cpu_usage_pct , enter "congestion" mode. Previously, EOS also adjusted the target_block_cpu_usage_pct parameter to increase the threshold of "congestion", making the "congestion" state more difficult to touch.

The tea cat of IMEOS believes that EOS congestion is both a good thing and a bad thing: "The bad thing is that EOS still does not do well enough in instantaneous resource allocation, which will lead to instant resource scarcity and congestion. Unreasonable resource allocation on EOS is an economic crisis. Strengthen and optimize. The good thing is that everyone is starting to pay attention to EOS’s on-chain governance and EOS Dapp.”

"The CPU is actually enough, but the instantaneous resource allocation rules do not fully allocate the CPU. This needs to be solved at the code level. It should only need to optimize the code, and there is no need to change the large rule framework." Tea Mao said.

However, from an objective point of view, EOS, which is known as a million TPS, currently has a peak data value of only about 4,000 on the main network. If this speed has been maintained, EOS's lofty ambition to become a commercial-grade public chain may be difficult to realize.

In addition, with this airdrop event, another wave of investors who hold EOS but have not used DApps entered the market, and user experience has once again become a content that has been criticized by everyone.

The operation of EOS is indeed relatively difficult. Not only do users need to understand the resource consumption rules of the network in advance, but they also need to constantly adapt to changes in the network, and lease and pledge in person in exchange for CPU. In contrast, the transfer fee model of Ethereum is indeed simpler and straightforward.

This airdrop event made EOS finally face the pain point. Although it is a bit embarrassing, the event always has two sides. Even though EOS is still far away from the public chain 3.0, it is worth looking forward to that this "congestion" incident may have forced the community to develop the next wave of practical tools for the EOS ecosystem.