Me, Myself And EOS

EOS mastering.png

I thought I wanted to share my experience with EOS so far - as it has been two months since main net launch. If you are under the wrong impression that the EOS launch was boring and non-eventful, please read on!

Now, I want to make sure you know where I am coming from. I came into crypto currency in 2016 through the ETF's we have here in Scandinavia. As I learned more about what Bitcoin and later on crypto currency, Blockchains and Smart Contracts were, I realized I had to hold my own private keys. Now, this took me on a long ride through everything from Electrum, the forks of summer 2017, MyEtherWallet(MEW), Ledger Nano S, USB sticks that can tolerate heat up to 1000 degrees and nuclear war, a new apple machine dedicated to crypto stuff, and basically everything you yourself has been through as well. I found Steem and Steemit, also created by Dan Larimer, I created accounts, delegated my stake, I bought steemmonsters, I had spread sheet after spread sheet with passwords and accounts and protonmails and this is basically my life now. I'm a layman. I had ZERO knowledge about computers, security or cryptocurrency when I started out.

I was just peeking out of the space shuttle, slipped and now I am floating through this crazy space called crypto.

For some reason I bought EOS very early on. I don't remember why to be honest. It happened in my altcoin frenzy late summer 2017. After registering it on MEW, it felt like yup, it's out of my control now. Then we waited and finally we could use our keys. Except, there was nowhere to use the keys. There was not even a wallet. Threads were made on reddit about how EOS was a scam. Not even a wallet! Oh my god.

Scatter, EOStoolkit and RAM

Well, I don't remember exactly how long it took, but a few days later Scatter and EOStookit came along. I did the usual three minute read up, went through some reddit posts and concluded that Scatter was safe. I just put my owners key right in there. I knew it was somewhat risky, but at this point I started realizing that this was something else.

A few glasses of wine later I was bidding on account names as well as creating 12 letter accounts. I had a feeling I was not the only one doing that that night. I think the search term; "12 letter words" on google trends peaked that night.

The account creation concept was a big deal at this point. I was familiar with it from Steem of course, and I like it. Now I realize that RAM is a thing. The accounts cost RAM. And RAM is an important resource on the EOS network. As more Dapps is being created the more RAM is needed to be stored for a long time - so the price goes up.

Hello feexplorer, Marketstack'd And RAM Trading

Wife, I'm trading RAM! Look at this! That was me a few days later when I jumped on the RAM-bandwagon. I was following the Telegram discussions while speculating wildly on RAM. I almost doubled my EOS. Then rumor came out that Dan Larimer proposed to increase RAM, and then RAM fell. I lost a little bit and then RAM trading died. I had 70% more tokens than before. Soon there will also be a REX (resource exchange) where you can rent out CPU and Bandwith. More fun stuff. We have all ready more than 40 airdrops as well as airgrabs.

Wallets And Security

Once again EOS was under heavy attack from the congested ETH-fanboys on Reddit. One should believe they would focus on ETC catching up to them, but no. Now it was time to calm down. I found Simpleos and EOS-voter by Greymass. Both great wallets, but my personal favorite is EOS-voter. I also realized that you can have a Owners private key and a Owners Active key, a lot like on Steem with the posting, active and owners keys. So I had to use Scatter and countless minutes on Telegram with patient developers on how to create a active key for my genesis account that didn't have one. The idea here is that you always log in with your active key - and if it is compromised you can change it with your owners key. The owners key is like the last defense. If you have your EOS staked, it takes three days to unstake. So put an alarm on your wallet, if someone unstake it, you go in and change the active key which has been compromised.

Wizards

I love games, and I have a feeling that Blockchain and gaming is a pair made in heaven. It's perfect, and I think it will change gaming forever. Games like cryptokitties, Wizards etc are merely the start. But it's fun enough when you can claim your own free Wizard and dress it up. I spent a little bit too much on it, but after actually selling one for more than twice the amount that I paid - I am kind of excited. But we will see. As a veteran in this space I have learned to lower my expectations a little bit.

Dapps And The Way Forward

A few days ago I discovered Trybe, and today I decided to make my first post there. It's a social media blogging site and it feels a little bit like Medium but with more focus on the social aspect perhaps. Yes, you earn tokens - and it seems to be a community there all ready as well as high quality content! So they won't let anything through. Readers then vote for articles that they enjoy, and you are awarded. A concept that we are familiar with from Steemit.

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So let's try this out as well. It looks great so far, and it seems to be incentivizing high quality content..And who knows what the future will bring? All I know is that we are two months into the Mainnet, and I have learned a lot. The learning curve is steep. There is no one holding your hand, but I have received many a helping hand. People are in general helpful and nice in this space. There is a sense of community and we-are-in-this-togetherness going on. Not in a hippie kind of way, even though a lot of misguided "anarchists" has stumbled into this space - but in a let's learn and be better and take this ride together kind of thing.

The Dapps are being developed, the transactions are instant, the utility is growing. Of course it will take some time to adjust and fix unexpected things. But EOS is definitely the coolest kid in town.