Meet Your Local EOS Block Producer Candidates

EOS.IO will be the latest of the smart contract platforms to launch with its Mainnet launch targeted for early June. Although the tools and infrastructure for the protocol are being built by Block.one, the live network will be operated by a combination of 21 different Block Producers in a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) system. Although there will be 21 Block Producers processing transactions, the voting for the producers will be ongoing and constant, with Block Producers potentially changing by the minute if participants change their votes. Therefore, as many as 200+ Block Producers will keep their candidacy live and remain eligible for some kind of reward for being in the queue.

When the network goes live, the Block Producer elections will begin. The goal is for Block Producers to be located all around the world, so that no government or central organization would be able to shut down enough of them at a given time to interrupt the network. Although some of these candidates may have physical servers that reside elsewhere, they have team members based in the Southern California, New York, and Puerto Rico.

Yesterday, Blockchain Beach published a guide to EOS Block Producers. The 21 Block Producers will earn rewards for managing the network at a given time.  With votes being tallied every few minutes, there are expected to be hundreds of Block Producers ready and waiting to earn rewards for staking their tokens.  Here is additional information on several of the top domestic candidates:

LibertyBlock

According to their recent Steemit post:

“Our goal is to be the most transparent, accountable, and cooperative block producer. We won’t stop this pursuit until we are completely vetted and recognized by our peers as such.”

Team

LibertyBlock is the fusion of Everipedia, The Dollar Vigilante, and Ikigai Asset Management.

Although the team is based largely in Los Angeles, the project has a global scope, with a data center in Bhutan.

Community

They are also working to build community centers around the world. These community centers intend to educate local communities on Crypto and have them discover what the benefits of Blockchain are for their particular situation:

Mexico: One of the elders of a local tribe in Teotihuacan is also the Dean of Computer Science at a local University. The project is currently underway to create a community center at their compound alongside the pyramid of the Moon and the Path of the Milky Way.

Puerto Rico: LibertyBlock’s Tim Lewis has previously held multiple “Day of Listening” events at Puerto Rico Restart Week. There, he enrolled college professors and other community leaders in the project.

Colombia: The team has engaged locals in the coffee producing regions of Armenia and Pereira. If it became necessary for the project to proceed, they have also engaged in conversations with the Ministry of Technology for the Colombian Government.

Bhutan: A team has been formed in this region to research the best possible location for a community center.

Roadmap

Their Q2 Roadmap is focused on Block Producer elections, a post launch technical updated, and the Everipedia Airdrop, but they also have a strong roadmap for Q3/Q4, including:

• Ongoing EOS evangelization
• Community project updates
• Continued dApp support, advisory, and development
• Operations, business development, and software roles hired for team expansion
• Continued post-launch technical upgrades and updates
• Year-end block producer annual report, including financials, governance and communications, technical analytics and insights, and overall lessons learned
• Year-end Everipedia dApp lessons learned update

ShEOS

According to their recent Steemit post:

“shEOS is comprised of an international group of female entrepreneurs, investors and engineers – the only female operated EOS Block Producer candidate – deeply committed to supporting a solid and successful EOS.IO blockchain launch and growth on a global scale.” 

Team

This group includes some of the top Women in Blockchain, including Crystal Rose (SENSE/Sensay), Emily Bush (Decentra Capital & dna.fund), Shauna Mei Devand (QBX Global), Pamela Day (Paladin Trust), Sandy Hill (Artemis Collective), Maja Vujinovic (OGroup), Nicole Boyar (Marketing Consultant), Naomi Dabby (Investor), Jessica Houlgrave (Codex Protocol), and Vivie-Ann Bakos (Artemis Collective).

Values

They are committed to a number of values including:

Women Empowerment: Ending the gender gap for women in finance and technology.

Collaboration: With other EOS Block Producers.

Dependability: Operating secure Data Centers.

Integrity: Rooted in honesty and strong moral principles, vetted by consensus voting.

Global Economy: Valuing diversity with a presence in Europe, North America, and Asia.

Roadmap

Their Q3/Q4 Roadmap includes the following items:

• Fund first class of shEOS scholars (in partnership with Academy)
• Fund second class of ShEOS scholars (in partnership with University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez)
• Embark upon a speaking tour at large-scale events for the shEOS leadership team
• Establish regional educational meet-ups
• Support global EOS hackathons
• Develop educational content focused on attracting female developers to the EOS platform and to dissemination of information about the EOS platform

EOS Southern California (EOS SOCAL)

According to their recent Steemit post, EOS SOCAL is a “self funded organization” that:

“Our goal is to contribute to the overall success of the EOS.IO decentralized ecosystem from this area of the world, helping masses preserve life, liberty and property for a better world.” They aim to achieve this goal via:

• Contributing reliable and scalable block production to the EOS.IO blockchain
• Allocating development resources , including support, funding, design and programming to projects that align with the EOS.IO philosophy for a better world.
• Helping educate the community, from beginners to advanced users, on using EOS.IO open source software by providing educational content and planned workshops.
• Advocating for the EOS.IO platform, helping others discover and adopt by spreading the word, supporting communities and distributing content.
• Developing decentralized applications with a soon-to-be-released project we hope will change a billion lives, as described by Brock Pierce with an “air drop” of tokens to EOS token holders.

Team

The EOS SOCAL team, based in Los Angeles, includes Cesar Diaz (entrepreneur and investor), Alex Gomory (node builder & miner), and Virginia Larez (operations).

Roadmap

Their Q3/Q4 Roadmap includes:

• Educational workshops and meetups
• Transparency and accountability dashboard
• Community benefits
• DApp incubation
• Online content
• Airdrops

EOS Block Producer App Coalition

From their recent Steemit post:

“BPAC aims to create an environment to develop the developers. Our focus is on how to best nurture and support dApp developers in a manner that offers unbiased aid. We believe that dApps are essential to a strong blockchain and will provide assistance to those trying to develop and launch dApps. Any developers needing assistance will always be greeted with a welcome.

Our goal is to support developers and users of EOS. One of our first objectives is to educate and support developers who have built on Ethereum with transitioning to EOS.”

Team

This group is lead by Reeve Collins (BLOCKv), Fred Krueger (WorkCoin), Kartik Mandaville (SpringRole), and Kurt Braget (White Rabbit).

Community

They are based in Bangalore, India, but with offices in Santa Monica, CA and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

To develop the community they intend to:

• Work with local groups to socialize the platform
• Maintain maximum network flexibility and constant communication with the EOS community
• Integrate ever-evolving industry best practices
• Provide free educational resources to developers, available online and at meetups throughout the world via our app coalition network
• Build free tools, via BLOCKv, for developers looking to build on EOS or move their tokens from Ethereum to EOS
• Work with state governments in India to setup blockchain training for students
• Maintain an EOS application directory for all applications being built on EOS

Roadmap

• Continuously re-investing in the hardware and software infrastructure to run the EOS open-source protocol in a fast, efficient and reliable manner
• Indexing, classifying, and enhancing the discovery of EOS apps
• Building a robust set of developer tools to make it easier to write to the EOS blockchain, including programmable tokens
• Creating an open and transparent marketplace of freelance resources available to the EOS developer community via
• WorkCoin promoting a global vision of the EOS community, through our community of application developers throughout the world

EOS New York

According to their recent Steemit post, they:

“Believe the EOS.IO platform will usher in fundamental positive change for how we connect with one another. We will do this through educating the community about the unique aspects of the EOS blockchain, adding value directly to the network and the token-holder, and consistently fostering community collaboration both in-person and abroad.”

Values

They stand for the following:

Education: Of token holders of all types, soon-to-be token holders, and passive users of the EOS blockchain with accessible and simple materials.

Technology: High-speed, low-latency — the gold standard for data center performance.

Governance: Will propose a “EOS Users Bill-of-Rights” which will enshrine enumerable rights that can never be violated by network code.

Community: Paramount to establish a system that empowers both the individual and the group — will seek out the conversations where they are happening.

Transparency: To maintain this structure of user ownership we must be completely devoid of opacity — network specs, block rewards, internal constitution, value commitment, etc.

Value: By incubating dApp development, reinvesting back into our own network architecture, hosting community Meetups, and collaborating and coordinating with Block Producers across the globe.

Team

This group, based in New York, includes Rick Schlesinger (former Management Consultant), Kevin Rose (Marketer), and William Deck (web services in the financial sector).

BP Squared

According to their recent Steemit Post and their website they:

“Have set standards for ourselves and others to be the best stewards of the blockchain, the EOS community, and the greater community. We focus on security, stability, and reliability.”

Values

Service: We are stewards of the blockchain, humble servants rather than elevated leaders.

Decentralization of Power: We believe DPoS is a significant iteration in the evolution of governance and an opportunity to prove its potential, not just in theory or thought experiment, but in full application.

Compliance: Strictly compliant in all relevant jurisdictions and will work with government authorities to create a favorable legal environment.

Transparency: Putting transactions on the blockchain, public and open for inspection.

Community

Local Talent Pool – The engineering school in Mayagüez is ranked 15th in the US and 1st in the Caribbean. Mayagüez is the perfect place for an EOS development accelerator: a major investment in the next generation of top tech talent. They started working with local students and a local organization, EduBlock, and hosted a hackathon on May 11 and 12, 2018.

Global Blockchain Leadership – Puerto Rico is becoming a ripe entrepreneurial ecosystem and a center of the blockchain industry.

Community Support – The presence in Puerto Rico is a part of Restart, a long-term entrepreneurial and humanitarian movement to rebuild the island better and stronger than it was before Hurricane Maria hit. These efforts launched in mid-February in San Juan and are continuing across the whole island, starting with the west coast.

Team

This group, based in Puerto Rico, includes Robert Anderson (solutions architect for Puerto Rico) and Corinne Clinch (Founder of Rorus Inc). They are advised by Anthony Diiorio (CEO of Jaxx & Decentral, Co-Founder of Ethereum).