Recent Developments in Blockchain

Abstract

In this chapter, we focus on three new technologies that have significantly advanced our understanding of blockchain-enabled applications and opened up several new avenues for research. We begin our discussion with EOS, an Ethereum competitor built with an OS inspired architecture and platform-support design philosophy. It uses a new consensus mechanism called delegated proof-of-stake to enable rapid transaction verification and a continuous cycle of voting for delegates that support the network. The message passing protocols implemented in EOS are very advanced, allowing automated response handlers and action triggers on message delivery. They make up most of the smart contract system. There is also support for parallel lockless execution of smart contract instructions across the network, massively reducing latency in communication and state updates.