Metal Purchases Major EOS Block Explorer 

Blockchain payment solution Metal has announced the purchase of multifunctional EOSIO platform, Bloks.io. According to an official press release, the two companies have signed a binding letter for the acquisition this week. For now, the financial details remain unknown.

Building a Larger Ecosystem

Bloks.io was launched by blockchain development firm EOS. The product was intended to be a simple block explorer, but it soon became a multipurpose platform that supported several networks — including Telos, WAV, and Proton.

Metal claimed that Bloks.io now has over 10,000 daily active users. Its creator, former Ethereum core developer Syed Jafri, will also join Metal’s development team. The payment solution is primarily looking into integrating Bloks.io with Proton, its proprietary blockchain and cryptocurrency platform. Metal launched Proton in April 2020 to act as a public blockchain and smart contract platform for developing consumer apps and facilitating peer-to-peer payments.

As the press release explained, Metal’s objective is to integrate Proton into its Collectibles.io platform as an additional wallet and chain option. Collectibles.io is a separate platform that Jafri also founded. It is a non-fungible token marketplace that runs on the WAX blockchain.

The Bloks acquisition is Metal’s second significant purchase this year, after it purchased blockchain and crypto project Lynx in May. On the company’s plans, Metal chief executive Marshall Hayner said: 

“With the Lynx, Bloks and Metal teams all focused together on the prize of a consumer-friendly crypto payments platform, we have the critical “escape velocity” to bring easy to use crypto to the mainstream.”

EOS Loses Equilibrum to Polkadot

This move also marks the second departure that EOS is witnessing from its ecosystem. This month, Equilibrium, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, announced that it would be moving to the Polkadot blockchain. 

The protocol’s press release explained that the move was necessary given its plans — to create an independent parachain. The new parachain will be connected to Polkadot, and it will feature a utility token known as EQ. besides paying transaction fees on the parachain, EQ will help to govern the protocol’s activities.

Equilibrium began as an analog for top DeFi project MakerDAO on EOS. Speaking with Cointelegraph, Equilibrium chief executive Alex Melikov explained that the Polkadot move would include incorporating a broader product suite.

The move will allow a new lending protocol with support for an interoperable stablecoin, as well as the generalized lending of any asset — in the same manner as platforms such as Aave and Compound. Equilibrium is also planning a synthetic asset platform and a decentralized exchange.

Explaining the choice of Polkadot, Melikhov claimed that Equilibrium was drawn to the company’s focus on performance. He also highlighted the higher level of decentralization and the fact that the number of nodes isn’t limited to a fixed set.

However, the most significant factor to influence the move was interoperability with Ethereum DeFi and other blockchains. Melikhov explained that they plan to keep EOS compatibility, but they wouldn’t be able to build the same technology on a different blockchain. He also hinted that they’d build the core of the new platforms’ technology on Polkadot and share it with other chains.