What is EOS Mainnet Mapping?

Recently, many cryptocurrency exchanges have announced that they support EOS mainnet mapping. So, what exactly is EOS mainnet mapping, and how will support or not affect our EOS transactions?

Let's talk about EOS first. It is the abbreviation of Enterprise Operation System and is a commercial distributed operating system. In other words, EOS is a blockchain platform like Ethereum ETH. From the perspective of cryptocurrency, EOS is different from most tokens on the market because it is not based on the token of the Ethereum network, but a new type of cryptocurrency that stands on its own. To put it more simply, EOS and ETH are things of the same level. In the future, when the EOS mainnet is completed, various tokens based on the EOS network should appear.

However, since the EOS mainnet has not yet been developed, the EOS currently traded on the market is actually "fake" EOS, which is a temporary EOS token based on the Ethereum ERC20 standard and can be used for investment transactions. When the real EOS mainnet is launched, the EOS tokens currently in circulation will complete their mission and be replaced by the real cryptocurrency EOS.

So there is also a problem. The current EOS tokens and the real EOS in the future are not the same currency, nor are they on the same network. Therefore, an exchange operation is needed, and this exchange operation is the EOS main network mapping mentioned at the beginning. The EOS main network mapping is to map the EOS tokens on the current Ethereum network to the EOS main network, thus forming a connecting bridge. After the EOS main network is developed and launched in the future, the number of EOS you have on the Ethereum network will be mapped to the EOS network to complete the conversion of new and old EOS tokens.

It should be noted that the EOS mainnet mapping is not actually completed automatically. It does not mean that if you have EOS tokens now, they will be automatically converted into real EOS after the mainnet goes online in June 2018. This requires the establishment of a mapping operation. It is more complicated for individuals to manually map, and it is easy to leak private keys during the process, resulting in asset loss. Therefore, recently, Huobi Pro, Binance, OKEx, CEX, COIN TIGER, ZB and other exchanges have issued announcements, saying that they support EOS mainnet mapping, that is, if you store EOS in these exchanges, they will automatically be converted into real EOS for you after the mainnet goes online.

If your EOS tokens are stored in a personal wallet, you should be careful. If the wallet does not support EOS mainnet mapping, then after the EOS mainnet is launched, you will not be able to exchange them for real EOS. At that time, the fake EOS in your hand will be real fake EOS. Therefore, friends who plan to hold EOS for a long time, before the EOS mainnet is launched, pay attention to whether your EOS tokens have been mapped.

At the time of writing, Huobi Pro, Binance, OKEx, CEX, COIN TIGER, ZB, BCEX, Gate.io, BigOne, and BtcTrade exchanges have announced that they support EOS mainnet mapping. As for wallets, imToken announced that it will soon support EOS wallet mapping, and AntWallet's official website describes that it supports EOS mapping (we have not verified its security). As for manual mapping operations, the METAMASK wallet recommended by the EOS official website can be mapped manually, but manual mapping is not recommended because some EOS mapping tutorials on the Internet may have problems, and there is a certain probability that the coins will be lost if they are operated according to them.

In summary, for security reasons, it is the easiest way to put EOS on a well-known exchange that supports mainnet mapping. I believe that in the near future, more wallets will support EOS mainnet mapping.