What do we know about the upcoming EtherZero fork claiming to deliver EOS-like features?
There is an upcoming Ethereum hard fork called EtherZero (ETZ). As some of the claims made by the ETZ team (e.g. increased scalability and the lack of transaction fees), directly correspond to EOS features, we've decided to do some research about it using whatever information is available on the web.
It turns out the project is accompanied by an aura of mystery, as most of the details are still inaccessible. We’ve managed to analyze the ETZ whitepaper, exchange several emails with the team, visit their Telegram channel and review a couple of documents published by them.
The first thing that's really striking are the differences in announcement of ETZ hardfork. Just compare the current announcement with the archive.org cache and you'll notice strange changes in the total supply (from 116 million ETZ to 194 million ETZ) and yearly inflation rate (from 5% to 6.5%).
A look at MetaMask's blacklist further increases our anxiety and Ethereum Scam Database isn't really helping in calming it down. Furthermore, it turns out that the etherzero.org domain has been registered in Panama.
The hardfork is taking place tomorrow, but the only ETZ code available on their official Github page boils down to forks of a couple of existing popular projects, such as Ethminer and Open Ethereum Pool with no other than cosmetic changes in repositories, e.g. changing the logo or the donatation address. It’s worth reminding that the hardfork has been already canceled once, only to be restored later.
The website itself seems to be done rather quickly and we couldn't find any satisfying content there. Allegedly there was a tool for claiming your future ETZ tokens by posting your ETH private key, but we couldn't find any hard proof of that.
REMEMBER TO NEVER EVER ENTER YOUR PRIVATE KEY ON A WEBSITE YOU CANNOT FULLY TRUST
After gathering all the above information about ETZ we conclude that it has a long way to go to gain trust, and it's still in a very early phase.
This research was done for us by @perduta.
If anything asks you for your private key its most certainly a scam. Would be wise to avoid this one.
Technically speaking, every fork requires private keys to claim forked coins. That's why it is so important to not trust by default unknown forks.
wonderful post great work thank you for sharing
Great information, I actually didnt know about this upcoming fork. But I will keep an eye on it and maybe invest once a bit more trust has been gained in the crypto markets.
I saw announcements of the fork earlier and was puzzled as to how serious this one is. The points you raise make me doubt if this project is trustworthy.
Nowadays, forks are en vogue to make a quick and easy profit for those who hold tons of the forked coin and have some technical skills.
ETZ looks like a scam to me...you flagged right points.
I personally Don't believe it would Deliver as fast as EOS ,
It should take a year to develop such a software even for Someone Like Dan and EOS Team
I believe they will say it's fast (but how fast )
You won't see numbers
I am not a technician myself but I have read a post about
peer review of cardano ouroboros
They also claimed they would deliver speed
https://steemit.com/cardamon/@dan/peer-review-of-cardano-s-ouroboros
and they would but it wouldn't be as fast as EOS