EOS Mini FAQ
— A quick supplementary FAQ based on common questions from the Telegram group
A lot of people in the EOS Telegram group seem to keep asking the same questions again and again.
I’ve also had some people asking me the same questions via direct message.
I simply don’t have time to answer everyone directly so I thought it might be more useful to answer some of these questions in a blog post and link to them.
This is my attempt at creating that post.
I will apologise in advance for any errors. Please let me know if you spot anything and I will correct it.
General Questions About Eos
Why Should I buy EOS?
The short answer is that if you need to ask this kind of question you probably shouldn’t.
Do some research read about EOS and then decide if you want to invest. You should not be doing it based solely on someone else’s opinion.
Once you have done your research a better question to ask is — what makes EOS different from the competition?
What makes EOS different from the competition?
EOS is a platform for decentralised applications, that is not unique though.
What makes it unique is that it solves one of the most important problems in the blockchain space right now and that is scaling.
Currently both bitcoin and ethereum are suffering from extreme congestion which is making them both extremely frustrating and expensive to use.
It may be some time until they solve these issues (if ever) and there may be considerable resistance from their respective communities to changes even when scaling solutions are found.
The scaling wars in relation to bitcoin are a perfect example of this.
EOS doesn’t have that issue. It will be significantly faster than any of its competitors right from the start.
It is based on similar technology to both the Steem and Bitshares blockchains which are already processing large numbers of transactions without significant issues.
There is a lot more to EOS but I will leave you to do that research yourself.
What is Block.one?
Block.one is the company that is developing the EOS software.
I heard that Block.one themselves won’t be launching the blockchain for EOS. — Is this true? Why is that?
This is true and is most likely to avoid various legal complications and liabilities in the current blockchain climate.
I suspect that it is a model that future cryptocurrency distributions may start emulating as more and more governments start to take a heavy handed approach with cryptocurrencies.
Won’t that mean there will be lots of competing blockchains? Isn’t it a problem?
There may be competing blockchains initially but I think only one EOS blockchain will be supported by Block.one with their 1 billion dollars plus of money for dapp development. This will be based on community consensus.
What if people launch EOS blockchains that don’t respect the token distribution?
Then they will not be EOS as they will not have the support of the EOS community or Block.one — in essence they will be no different from early bitcoin clones which just copied the code.
They may have some value but they will not have the same social or capital value backing them.
Questions about buying EOS ERC-20 Tokens
Which is better — buying from the EOS distribution contract or from an exchange?
The short answer is that if you need to ask the question then an exchange is better for you.
This link will give you a list of the main exchanges where you can buy or sell EOS right now:
The more detailed answer is that the price varies between both.
Sometimes exchange prices are higher. Sometimes the contract distribution price (or ICO as people call it) is cheaper.
The big difference is that on the exchange you set a specific price and it gets filled or not.
The distribution price varies according to how many people contribute to each period and the 2 million EOS tokens are divided amongst all the people according to how much ether they sent.
The greater the ether contributed during a particular period the higher the price per token will be.
Why is the distribution price so much cheaper than the exchange price?
It is isn’t — the price isn’t finalised until the period ends. You are probably looking at an intermediate price reflecting current contributions.
As more people contribute the price will keep changing right up until the end.
So whilst it may seem like you can buy for one tenth of the exchange price right now, by the time the period ends it will be much closer.
Why is the ICO/distribution one year long? Isn’t that bad for the price?
The primary aim of the distribution is to allow as many people as possible to buy EOS tokens.
In the past, short distributions (e.g. BAT) have resulted in many people being unable to buy tokens, with large quantities ending up in the hands of a few wealthy individuals (whales).
The distribution model of EOS was designed to reduce that. It is not perfect but it seems to be working better than the previous “flash” ICOs.
Whether it suppresses the price or not is a matter of debate and frankly irrelevant in the long term.
Why has the price gone up/down to “X” right now?
Prices never stay the same (at least not for very long). They go up and they go down.
Sometimes there is some fundamental news behind the movement (e.g. government crackdowns on mining etc), other times there seems to be no direct reason and may be the result of shifts within the markets themselves.
There is also the obvious point that any kind of sharp movement up or down will be followed by some kind of correction.
Markets in general are in a state of constant flux and cryptocurrency markets experience this to an exaggerated degree as they are relatively small.
If you are uncomfortable with this you should stay out of cryptocurrencies and investing in general.
OK so I decided to buy from the distribution contract — Is there a guide on how to do it?
Yes you can use this guide by Sandwich : https://steemit.com/eos/@sandwich/contributing-to-eos-token-sale-with-myetherwallet-and-contract-inner-workings
It uses myetherwallet (MEW) but the process will be very similar if you are using ethereum wallet.
There is one thing that is incorrect in the guide, when you go to claim you should use “claim” rather than “claimall” — this will save you gas and make your transaction more likely to succeed.
You will need to know the period(s) you contributed to before you do this (see below):
I used the distribution contract and forgot which period I contributed to — how do I find that out?
Enter your address on this website: http://eoschart.com/
It will show you the periods you contributed for.
How can I tell if my transaction worked?
You can enter your transaction ID into Etherscan.io.
If you don’t have the transaction ID, you can just enter your address in the top right corner and it will show you a list of recent transactions from your address (which you can click on for more details).
Problems and Errors
I am in the US/China can I still buy tokens?
Yes. For legal reasons Block.one are blocking US and Chinese IP addresses from participating in the token distribution using the official website/EOS app (for Metamask).
This does not mean those people can’t get around that and buy either from an exchange or directly using the ethereum contract.
In China in particular you may be breaking your local laws by buying directly from the contract as this may be considered an ICO.
On the other hand buying from an exchange may not be illegal, I am not a legal expert though and it is up to you to interpret the laws or get legal advice in your particular jurisdiction.
Will registering my tokens get me into trouble with Block.one and cause any problems if I am in the US/China?
No because the blockchain does not know where you are.
I sent my ether and have still not received any tokens — what is wrong?
Firstly you need to make sure that the current token sale period (23 hours) has finished. Once it has finished you need to claim your tokens as detailed in the guide by sandwich. If you don’t claim you won’t see them in your wallet.
Do I have to claim?
From what I understand the tokens will be associated with your ethereum account whether you claim them or not. As long as you register you should be included in the snapshot for actual native EOS tokens.
However if you intend to do anything with your ERC-20 tokens like moving them around or selling them then you will need to claim.
I sent my ether to the contract from an exchange — how can I get my tokens?
You should not have done this as you don’t have control of the address and therefore can’t claim or interact with your tokens in any way.
The only solution is for you to contact the exchange and hope that they will help you.
They don’t have to.
Most exchanges state in their terms and conditions that they do not support contract interaction or ICOs.
In future remember that you MUST never send ether (or anything else) to an ICO or contract from an exchange.
I accidentally sent my EOS ERC-20 tokens to the EOS contract address — what can I do?
Right now you can’t do anything. The Block.one team is working on contingency solutions that may allow you to still receive your actual EOS tokens in the future. You will have to wait for more information.
I accidentally sent my EOS ERC-20 tokens to a different address I don’t own— what can I do?
Unless you know who that address belongs to and have a means of contacting them (e.g. an exchange) then there is nothing you can do.
Even if you do know them them you will have to ask them to send the tokens back and hope they do it.
I keep getting gas errors when using the EOS contract — what can I do and what figures should I be using?
During periods of congestion it gets very difficult to send anything on the ethereum network (this is very much why we need solutions like EOS).
One thing that sometimes works is to simply wait a few hours or even a few days (if you can) and try again when the network is hopefully less congested.
You also need to be sure that there is some ether in your account in order to pay for the transaction fees in the first place. If you are very low on ether you might not have enough to actually pay.
Also as mentioned previously if you are claiming tokens do not use “claimall” use “claim” for the specific period instead.
There is also a tool called ETH Gas Station that gives a list of statistics regarding Gas prices, costs etc (see screenshot):
Another alternative is to look at the EOS contract on etherscan.io and see the gas figures that were used by the most recent successful transactions (link and examples below):
https://etherscan.io/token/EOS
Registration
What is registration?
The current EOS token is an ERC-20 token on the ethereum blockchain. EOS will have its own blockchain when it launches. In order to exchange the ERC-20 tokens for actual EOS tokens you need to register. This allows you to assign an EOS blockchain public key to an ethereum address. When the distribution ends a snapshot will be taken and your EOS-ERC tokens will be duplicated on the EOS blockchain.
How do I register?
Registration instructions are available in the aforementioned guide by Sandwich: https://steemit.com/eos/@sandwich/contributing-to-eos-token-sale-with-myetherwallet-and-contract-inner-workings
There are also instructions on the distribution website:
How do I check my registration worked?
There is another guide by Sandwich which covers this specifically:
What happens to the ERC-20 tokens after the registration deadline?
23 hours after the final distribution period ends on June 1, 2018 at 22:59:59 UTC, the ERC-20 tokens will become frozen for the snapshot (as shown in this screenshot from the token distribution website):
Once they are frozen you will not be able to move them, so you will not be able to sell them.
What if my tokens are frozen and I haven’t registered in time?
The Block.one team and community members such as Sandwich are working on contingency solutions to try to prevent unregistered people from being left without actual EOS tokens.
This process is still ongoing and there has not been any formal solution announced yet.
The best solution right now is to register them yourself.
I keep my tokens on an exchange — do I need to register them? Won’t the exchange do it for me?
You will need to ask the exchange that.
It is possible that the exchange will do it for you but so far I am not aware of any exchanges that have stated they will.
It is also not best practice to hold any tokens or cryptocurrency on exchanges longer than you need to anyway (for a variety of reasons e.g. exchange hacks, insolvency etc).
The best solution in this case is to keep the tokens in your own wallet and register them yourself.
