With the Antelope Protocol Release, the EOSIO Blockchain is reborn

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The EOS Network Foundation has started a new era by forking the underlying software for EOSIO blockchains to Antelopea new, community-driven blockchain protocol that has been rebuilt with the full support of ENF’s most important members.

The move to Antelope marks a new chapter in EOSIO’s long-running saga. Unlike most other well-known decentralized networks such as Ethereum, Polkadot and Avalanche, EOSIO is not a blockchain per se. Rather, it is an open-source software protocol used to build multiple blockchain networks that support high-performance decentralized applications. Some of the most famous blockchains built on EOSIO include EOS itself, Telos, Wax and UX Network.

First created by the developer Block One in 2018, EOSIO provides a way for developers to quickly set up a blockchain for dApps by simulating a machine plus the data, network and RAM resources they need. It also provides a wide variety of tools and protocols to establish security and permissions for specific blockchain networks.

When it first launched in 2018, great things were expected of EOSIO. Due to its revolutionary design and consensus mechanism, it is able to handle many times more transactions per second and do so with much lower fees than other networks. It was billed as the perfect tonic to the network congestion and high gas fees plaguing the Ethereum network, and there were expectations that it raised an impressive $4.2 billion in what remains, to this day, the largest initial coin offering ever in the blockchain industry.

Development Roadblock

For a number of reasons, EOSIO was unable to build on its early success. Instead, the massive ICO surge was followed by years of disappointment, with the project missing a number of milestones on its roadmap. With constant upheaval at Block One causing most of its best talent to leave the firm, development of the EOSIO protocol had nearly ground to a halt by mid-2021, and the project had become one of the laughingstocks of the crypto space.

The failure of Block One to build on EOSIO’s potential ultimately triggered one unprecedented social upheaval, with die-hard believers in the project who refuse to give up on their dream. Upset by Block One’s inaction, the community formed a new, decentralized autonomous organization called the EOS Network Foundation (ENF), led by CEO and CEO Yves La Rose. With the future of the network seemingly in jeopardy, the project took its first steps towards independence when block producers agreed to fund ENF and allow it to redirect resources back into network development.

To have fought for control of the project away from Block One, ENF set about breathing new life into EOSIO by establishing various working groups to come up with a revival plan. These working groups were financed by ENF and produced a series of Blue papers which outlined ways to improve the network, along with specific recommendations for making those changes. For example, the EOSIO+ working group came up with proposals to better coordinate the efforts of all EOSIO blockchains, with the aim of preserving and advancing the underlying codebase they all shared.

At the same time, ENF is hired a team of developers to create an independent, community-led fork of EOSIO under the code name “Mandel”. The initiative was later taken over by ENF’s engineering team, who introduced a number of new features and improvements to the protocol and set about trying to reach a community consensus on the upgraded network. This led to the creation of the Manel Upgrade Launch Group, which began to coordinate these efforts. Meanwhile, the EOSIO+ working group created a coalition consisting of EOS, Telos, Wax and UX Network.

Fast forward to April 2022 and the coalition voted unanimously to pool resources and work to implement the Mandel upgrade.

Antelope: A new protocol is born

At the culmination of these efforts, ENF announced the official launch of Mandel, now branded as “Antelope”, after the successful fork from EOSIO 2.0 in August.

A F announced the launch as a “leap for freedom”, saying it marks a whole new era for EOSIO. This is not an understatement. The release of Antelope is an important milestone that underscores the newfound independence and freedom of EOSIO, its ecosystem, and its strong leadership under ENF and its coalition members, EOS, Telos, Wax, and the UX Network.

Much more than just a rebrand, Antelope represents a significant evolution of the EOSIO protocol. Not only has the project been renamed, but it has also gained significant new functionality.

New features include Action Return values, the ability to retrieve the current block number from smart contracts, and also the ability to estimate the resource consumption of any code deployed to an account. Antelope also introduces new native cryptographic and mathematical features that can be accessed with smart contracts, and more is on the way, with Faster Finality and Trustless Inter-Blockchain Communication set to be enabled between all Antelope-based blockchains. Other features on the horizon include Secure Smart Contract Libraries, SDKs, P2P code improvements and more.

After making such a seismic shift, the protocol’s GitHub page has been renamed AntelopeIO, while the main C++ implementation has finally been given a name. The first community-driven implementation of the Antelope protocol is known as Leap v3.1and it introduces some important new features of its own, including improvements to subjective billing, and the ability for smart contacts to automatically retry transactions, estimate the resource consumption of transactions without including them in blocks, and prune block and ship logs to reduce storage room.

A new beginning

Going forward, the four main coalition members will continue their joint development of the Antelope Protocol. While each has its own area of ​​focus and may even compete with other members of the coalition in some areas, the group understands that cooperation is mutually beneficial. To that end, the coalition remains committed to making improvements in areas where blockchains overlap, to accelerate the development of the core Antelope protocol.

La Rose said in a statement that the release of Antelope is the culmination of a “historic effort” by some of the world’s most talented blockchain developers.

“We’re building on over four years of battle-hardened code, and the cumulative knowledge of four L1 chains leveraging each other’s strengths, all gathered behind the Antelope protocol,” he said. “At the EOS Network Foundation, we are committed to exemplifying the best Antelope has to offer by making EOS the most powerful and usable platform for building next-generation web3 products and services.”