Technically, the EOS Mainnet already launched on the 10th of June, 8 days after EOSIO v1.0 was released by its creator Block.one. For the Mainnet to be activated, however, 15% of the total token supply had to be used to vote on block producer candidates. Without reaching 15% – about 150 Million tokens – the Mainnet could not go live. But, finally, today the required 15% of the votes has been reached, making it possible for the EOS Mainnet to be activated.
It took more than a week for block producer candidates — organizations fighting to earn a spot as one of the 21 entities who will verify transactions in the EOS network — to finally agree to launch of the EOS Mainnet. What was delaying the actual activation of the Mainnet, however, was the needed 15% of the 1 billion total EOS tokens to vote for the network’s initial block producers. The votes are in turn weighted by how many tokens are staked.
Unfortunately, for EOS holders, the voting process had been going slow, as most users neglected to stake their tokens. One theory for EOS holders to neglect to vote has been that the voting process was a bit complicated with users fearing that they would accidentally expose their private keys in the process.
That said, on Thursday afternoon, block producer voting suddenly passed the 10% threshold. Probably because on Wednesday, Bitfinex — the fourth-largest EOS exchange — opened its own voting platform to allow traders holding EOS on the exchange to vote on whether Bitfinex should temporarily stake token balances on behalf of its users to contribute to the activation of the cryptocurrency’s Mainnet. Bitfinex, like several other exchanges, is also a block producer candidate. A few hours later, the goal of 15% was reached.
With the required 15%, the chain is considered as valid and normal functions are now going to be activated.
