EOS Blockchain China

EOS Tops Chinese Blockchain Rankings, Bitcoin (BTC) 15th

Bitcoin (BTC), Blockchain, EOS (EOS)–According to a press release on Jan. 24th, China announced another iteration of its government-sponsored ranking system for the top cryptocurrencies and their blockchains, once again placing EOS at the head of the pack.

Despite holding the fifth position by market capitalization, with a valuation of $2.2 billion, EOS has managed to hold the top spot in blockchain appraisal by China’s Center for Information and Industry Development (CCID). While the Chinese government has been characteristically anti-cryptocurrency, with some of the more severe crackdowns against the use and investment of digital coins by any major power, their state-sponsored blockchain ranking dates back to May of last year.  

EOS was ranked #1 in the last iteration of the blockchain evaluation released in December 2018, a position the coin has held since June 2018. Bitcoin, with a market capitalization over twenty-eight times that of EOS, was ranked fifteenth in blockchain appraisal, up three spots from December’s rankings. Ethereum, which ranks third in market capitalization just behind XRP, held the distinction of the second highest rated blockchain by the government organization, with XRP being placed all the way in the 20th spot. ETH’s position remains unchanged from December.

Despite placing XRP in the lower half of the pack, the most recent rankings report comes just days after Ripple, the startup behind the XRP coin, announced a blockchain-based scholarship with the Institute for Fintech Research at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, one of the country’s premier scholarly institutions. While Ripple has had little headway into China, and has instead focused its effort on developing and financially under-served countries such as Brazil and India, the new scholarship is broaching a partnership to bring top Chinese students to study global blockchain regulations and development–a move that could have broader implications for the industry of cryptocurrency.

While EOS has managed to gain significant praise from China’s state-sponsored blockchain review, the coin has been experiencing controversy dating back to last November, when the currency sparked a firestorm over the reversal of previously-confirmed transactions. According to evidence first posted on Reddit, a complaint put before one of the platforms arbitrators led to the eventual reversing of transactions that were previously confirmed on the network. EOS’s network gives considerable amount of power to its subset of arbitrators, a system that has led the currency’s decentralization to be called into question.

While this particular instance involved an account that was reportedly phished, with the implicated transactions occurring without the owner’s permission, the annulment of network-confirmed transactions is seen as a fundamental violation of blockchain by many users. In response to the controversy, EOS CTO Daniel Larimer said in an interview with Colins Talks Crypto that his coin has an alternative viewpoint towards the decentralization that is prioritized by most of the cryptocurrency industry,

“Decentralization isn’t what we’re after…What we’re after is anti-censorship and robustness against being shut down.”

Despite the announcement being positive development for EOS, the coin has not exhibited much price movement over the last week, following the current industry trend for top ten cryptos which have remained relatively stable throughout the latter half of January.

 

 

Title image courtesy of BeatingBetting.co.uk