Filecoin and Polkadot are said to be very similar to EOS back then. Will they both go down a path of no return?

Speaking of EOS, it is a project that once stole the limelight from Ethereum and is as popular as Bitcoin. This year’s two popular projects, FileCoin and Polkadot, are said by many people to be very similar to “the grapefruit of the past”. At first glance, it is unclear whether this sentence is a compliment or a criticism. If you think about it carefully, it may be more of the latter. In other words, some people think that both Polkadot and FileCoin will eventually go down a road of no return like grapefruit. Is this really the case?

Polkadot, a better “grapefruit”

Perhaps the biggest similarity between Polkadot and EOS lies in their tracks and visions. Both launched their mainnets after Ethereum experienced a period of "difficult" performance, and both are under the banner of "Ethereum killer" and want to compete with Ethereum. With solutions to many of Ethereum's problems, EOS has attracted a group of developers pursuing high performance to develop applications on EOS through the design of consensus mechanism and economic model, as well as BM's reputation as a "genius programmer". Polkadot has also attracted a group of followers through the high performance of the "early version of ETH2.0" and the reputation of its founder Gavin as the "mother" of Ethereum.

Although Polkadot and EOS have many similarities on the surface, there are actually huge differences, such as:

1. Governance is the biggest weakness of EOS. The conflicts between project owners, super nodes, and ecological application developers are becoming increasingly apparent, which makes BM very anxious. However, as the predecessors plant trees, the next generation will enjoy the shade. Polkadot may not continue to fall on this issue. As soon as Polkadot came up, it directly used DAO tools to assist governance. Perhaps a more fair and transparent community can gather strength and is the foundation for the longevity of the ecosystem.

2. Overseas communities: Most members of the EOS community have always been from China, and the popularity of the communities at home and abroad is seriously unbalanced, which will lose the credibility and diversity of an international public chain and greatly reduce the anti-fragility of the project itself. However, the Polkadot community seems to be building communities at home and abroad in full swing, which is relatively balanced, which is very important for a blockchain community.

3. The allocation and use of funds. As the project that attracted the most money, EOS, the money received from the sale of EOS, went into the pocket of BlockOne, but the project rarely funded and supported ecological applications. The project did not promise to use the funds (it is well known that most of them were used to buy Bitcoin and government bonds), nor did it set up a foundation. Since the mainnet was launched, the development has stagnated, and the community has accused the project of a series of accusations. Compared with EOS, which began to attract funds by borrowing EOS issued on Ethereum a year before the mainnet was launched, Polkadot did not rush to launch the token. After three years of hard work, after the Polkadot mainnet was launched, the project continued to promote development without stagnation and slackness, and the web3 Foundation has never stopped funding and promoting the ecology.

4. Continue to take action. If we want to see whether the project party has taken action, everyone has a lot of experience. After the mainnet is launched, we can see whether the founder, foundation, and ecological project still have positive performance. Even if the mainnet is launched and DOT is sold, the founder still attaches great importance to the Chinese market. In recent years, he has personally come to China to participate in various summits. The Polkadot community has also held many events in many cities in China. In contrast, the EOS project party in the past really did nothing.

5. Technological innovation: EOS has not only done nothing, but also has no prospect of technological innovation. The boast of “millions of TPS” that it boasted back then has not been seen so far. Polkadot, as the cross-chain duo, has brought the industry’s attention to cross-chain solutions. Judging from the current development progress, it will be implemented earlier than Ethereum 2.0 to achieve truly large-scale performance improvements.

In summary, compared with EOS, Polkadot has stronger community cohesion, more stable community governance, more diversified construction, the project has been continuously promoting development, the foundation has strongly funded the ecosystem, and the founder and project team attach great importance to the market. These aspects are much better than EOS. Therefore, as a competitor of Ethereum, Polkadot is a better "EOS".

FileCoin, a more complicated “yuzu”

"Only Chinese people are playing, it's very hot in China, but very cold overseas." This sentence was originally exclusive to EOS, but now it applies to FileCoin. Whether before or after the mainnet is launched, domestic big Vs and miners have all kinds of lively discussions and meetings, but overseas have always been deserted. Chinese miners have occupied the test network and the main network. Perhaps if it is not clear that the project party Protocol Labs is overseas, you really think FileCoin is a purely domestic project. Recent news about FileCoin-related mining seems to have seen the shadow of the Wenzhou gang's capital layout. This scene reminds many people of the Wenzhou gang that rushed in crazily before EOS went online...

When it comes to mining, FileCoin is currently mostly dominated by big miners, and big miners are more like mining pools, or like super nodes of EOS. The difference is that FileCoin governance is more difficult, because there seem to be many conflicts between large and small miners, investors, and project parties. In fact, the EOS mainnet was fine for more than a year after it was launched, and there has always been a lot of support from community members. It was not until the end of last year that it began to become a "rat crossing the street"

But the difference is that FileCoin exposed problems such as the economic model as soon as it went online. Miners invested a lot of time and money to buy mining machines, but found that in the end they had to buy expensive coins to pledge in order to participate in mining, and the mined coins had to be released linearly for a long time, which caused a lot of complaints. This is why FileCoin is more complicated than EOS, because its governance is difficult and the mining threshold is high.

What will be the ending of Filecoin and Polkadot?

Although many people think that the start of FileCoin and Polkadot is very similar to that of EOS back then, guessing the beginning may not necessarily lead to guessing the ending, because the two projects, FileCoin and Polkadot, are also very different from EOS.

Let’s talk about Polkadot first. Although it has been said before that Polkadot is stronger than EOS, it does not mean that it will definitely have a very good future, because don’t forget that its opponent is Ethereum. Most of the Ethereum “killers” in history have come to nothing, and it is not easy to stand on the opposite side of a strong ecosystem. But no matter what, Polkadot is currently the strongest opponent of Ethereum, no doubt about it.

If this year's DeFi craze has shown a "bright path" for public chains, then DeFi on Polkadot will have more advantages than DeFi on public chains such as Ethereum. ETH2.0 is still a long way off, and it is easy to migrate from Ethereum to Polkadot. Of course, Polkadot's parallel chain slot auctions and cross-chain can bring more flexible gameplay to DeFi itself. We will wait and see how it develops in the future.

As for FileCoin, there have been a lot of negative comments about it recently. To be honest, as the incentive layer of IPFS, FileCoin is a big step forward compared to the innovation of EOS. FileCoin and IPFS are mutually reinforcing. Their goals are very ambitious, but at the same time, the difficulty is also very high. Therefore, as the "pigeon king" who has been defending the champion for many years, it can be seen how much pressure the project party Protocol Labs is under. FileCoin mainnet is facing such a crisis right after it goes online. It is hard to imagine how difficult the road ahead will be.

For miners, the uncertainty of FileCoin and the controversial rules set by the project are huge. If some miners choose to withdraw at a loss, it may affect the stability and security of the main network in the short term. But no matter what, if you are still optimistic about the future of decentralized storage, FileCoin will definitely be the leader in the future if nothing unexpected happens, because Protocol Labs has made a lot of efforts and the IPFS ecosystem has blossomed everywhere, which is far ahead.

Do you think Polkadot and Filecoin will have a bright future? Please leave your comments in the comment section.