Block.one Hires Team Behind Prominent Block Producer EOS New York

EOSIO developer Block.one has recruited the team behind EOS New York (NY), a high-profile Block Producer on the EOS network. 

Founded in 2017, EOS NY was a one-time #1 Block Producer on EOS, but has now ceased its operations, an announcement on March 25 revealed. Speaking to Cointelegraph, EOS NY founder Kevin Rose said:

“We are deeply grateful for the way the community has embraced our team over these past few years. EOS NY was shut down prior to our joining Block.one, and EOS NY was not part of our move. We are excited to continue as a community participant in these new roles at Block.one."

Block.one has said that its hire of Kevin Rose, co-founder Rick Schlesinger and the EOS NY team is aimed at deepening its “engagement with public blockchain communities” and to “promote ideas to foster open, organized, and decentralized public network operation, and represent its interests as a token holder of several public digital assets.”

Block Producers’ role

As previously reported, EOS Block Producers (BPs) are analogous to miners on the Proof-of-Work-based Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain or staking nodes on a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol. 

The difference with EOS lies in its consensus mechanism, known as “delegated  proof-of-stake,” whereby — in keeping with the governance terms set by EOS’ constitution — network participants are able to stake their tokens to vote for their BPs as “elected delegates.” 

Rather than staking their token holdings as in a PoS system, Block Producers stake their investment in the network in the form of infrastructure, community support and development.  

Block.one deferred disclosing details of the team’s new responsibilities in their roles, stating that their integration into the company was still in the early days and that details would be shared as new initiatives unfold.

Recent developments

On March 27, Block.one announced an investment of $150 million into its U.S.-only blockchain-based social media network, Voice. The platform, still in beta testing, has drawn criticism for its data handling, whereby a U.K.-based firm reserves the right to share all user data collected with its employees and contracted third parties.

In early January, Block.one released the latest version of the software underlying the EOS blockchain, EOS.io 2.0, which includes a purpose-built WebAssembly (WASM) engine for EOS smart contracts, as well as multithreading support as part of the network code.