Block.one’s social media app, Voice, will not initially launch on EOS

A recent CoinDesk report states Voice, Block.one's long-awaited social media application, will not run on the EOS mainnet when its beta version goes live on Feb. 14. This finding comes from the FAQ for Voice, which says early iterations of the app will run on a “purpose-made” network. Block.one does carry on to claim the team would like to move Voice to the EOS blockchain, or even other suitable networks, but the statement alone is non-committal.

Why it matters:

• This news is not entirely new. Block.one’s EOS-less launch strategy for Voice has been publicly accessible since Dec. 9. But this approach runs counter to Block.one’s statements when it first announced Voice in Jun. 2019. While Block.one did not explicitly rule out a pivot back to EOS down the road, Block.one’s recent maneuvers could trigger other development teams to lose confidence in EOS as a viable smart contract platform.
• One explanation for the shift in launch strategy is EOS’s recent performance issues. Last Nov., a smart contract called EIDOS spiked network activity, congesting the network and making it increasingly expensive to execute transactions. These congestion issues still plague EOS to the point where some users can’t move EOS tokens out of their crypto wallets. Considering Block.one dropped over $150 million developing Voice ($30 million on the Voice.com domain name alone), it makes sense the company would opt to protect its investment instead of launching on a network that could stifle user engagement. Voice cannot compete with the likes of other social media giants Block.one aspires to dethrone by running on EOS in its current state.

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