2024 is in full swing, and the ecosystem has achieved many major milestones over the past few weeks. At the beginning of the year, ENF members participated in two high-profile events; the CRYPTO2030 event held in Davos, Switzerland, and the Blockchain 2 Government Conference held in Phuket, Thailand.

What follows is a series of exciting technological innovations, strategic investments, and more, all reported on the recent Everything EOS live broadcast. If you're short on time, this article will get you up to speed on the most important information you need to know.

If you are a developer in the EOS ecosystem, you can participate in this month’s developer challenge for a chance to win up to 1,000 EOS. Want a deeper understanding of EOS's growth over the past year? Be sure to check out the recently released EOS Ecosystem Review 2023.

Leap 5 goes live on mainnet

In early January, EOS’s underlying infrastructure underwent a major transformation with the deployment of Leap v5.0.0. This update is designed to improve performance, efficiency, and reliability, including faster system contract execution, increased speed, and reduced system memory consumption.

After the release, the EOSphere team conducted a series of tests and recorded real-world comparisons of improvements in CPU, memory, and disk IO between Leap v4.0.4 and v5.0.0. Through these tests, the team found that Leap v5.0.0 exhibited lower CPU utilization, more efficient memory footprint, and lower disk IO that was easier to manage.

The evolution of RAM and inscription technology on EOS

Inscription has been a hot topic in the Web3 industry in recent months, and EOS is no exception. When a large Inscription event triggered 17 million+ transactions in one day, the user experience on EOS was not affected and gas fees were not increased. In the following weeks, there was a flurry of inscription project launches on the EOS network, as well as some interesting innovations in inscription technology on EOS Native.

Inscription’s ongoing innovation on EOS Native is built on RAM, a network infrastructure that has seen increased adoption and exploration over the past few months. Much of this activity follows community proposals to stop RAM inflation. RAM is gradually evolving into a key asset for on-chain activities. The article below delves into all this and more.

Envisioning a BTC L2 solution powered by EOS

At the January Block Producer (BP) meeting, ecosystem leaders discussed the impact of key milestones such as Bitcoin ETFs, Ordinals, and the Taproot upgrade on Bitcoin adoption in the coming year. Tony Tsao, a long-time community member involved in the EOS network, saw this as a strategic turning point for EOS and proposed the idea of ​​EOS as a second-layer solution for BTC. In addition to Tony, members of the EOS Network Foundation (ENF), EOS Labs, and BP also participated in the discussion and decided to further explore this concept and its potential impact.

From this, a small working group consisting of various ecosystem contributors was formed to further discuss what such a project might look like. Recently, ENF CEO and founder Yves La Rose announced on X that the first draft of a white paper has been completed. Once released, this document will reveal a possible path forward for EOS as a dual layer 0 and layer 2 solution for Bitcoin.

ENV invests in NoahArk Technology Group and EZ Swap

EOS Network Ventures (ENV) is a venture capital fund designed to attract capital investment and invest that capital into the entire EOS network. Recently, ENV announced two major strategic investments that will have a significant impact on the ecosystem.

The first of these is a $500,000 investment in EZ Swap, a project that sets new standards for gaming asset trading and inscription technology. With this investment, ENV aims to support EZ Swap in its mission to democratize access to gaming assets and inscriptions, making them more accessible and efficient for users across multiple chains. At the same time, this investment will bring value to the network by attracting new users, cultivating innovative gaming solutions, and improving the overall utility and performance of the EOS ecosystem.

The second investment is a $2.4 million investment in NoahArk Technology Group’s DeFi infrastructure. NoahArk is an emerging DeFi project on the EOS EVM chain, focusing on providing highly secure and reliable decentralized trading services. With this investment, ENV aims to support NoahArk Technology Group as they create new avenues for collaboration and development that benefit the entire EOS DeFi ecosystem. At the same time, this investment will bring value to the network by creating new opportunities for DeFi on EOS while increasing users and liquidity on the network.

EOS Q4 Report Released

ENF recently released its EOS fourth quarter report, providing an in-depth overview of activity, growth, and financial spend. Check it out to learn more about the significant growth EOS has experienced in the last three months of 2023.

Messari also covered the EOS ecosystem in their Q4 2023 State of EOS report. The article details some of the most notable uptrend indicators of the fourth quarter. This includes a 22.6% increase in total pledged USD, a 222.4% increase in EOS revenue, and a 48.9% increase in circulating market capitalization.

EOS has a shocking start in 2024!

From the deployment of Leap v5, the growing adoption of EOS Inscription, the evolution of RAM technology, and strategic investments in NoahArk and EZ Swap, there is a lot to be excited about in the EOS ecosystem. Remember to check out the full Everything EOS livestream for information on all this and more. Additionally, if you are a developer, don’t miss the ongoing developer challenge for a chance to win up to 1,000 EOS.

If you want to connect with other EOS enthusiasts, join the EOS global Telegram group. Every Wednesday at 8pm UTC (3pm ET), the community joins ecosystem leaders to discuss the latest network news.

EOS Network

The EOS Network is a third-generation blockchain platform powered by EOS VM, a low-latency, high-performance, and scalable WebAssembly engine for deterministic execution of near-fee transactions; designed for optimal Built for the Web3 user and developer experience. EOS is the flagship blockchain and financial hub of the Antelope Framework, serving as the driving force for multi-chain collaboration and public goods funding of tools and infrastructure through the EOS Network Foundation (ENF).

EOS Network Foundation

The EOS Network Foundation (ENF) is built with a vision for a prosperous and decentralized future. Through our key stakeholder engagement, community projects, ecosystem funding and support of the open technology ecosystem, ENF is transforming Web3. Founded in 2021, ENF is the center of the EOS network, a leading open source platform with a stable set of frameworks, tools and libraries for blockchain deployment. We are bringing community-built innovation to life and working to create a stronger future for all.