$EOS $RAM
Following a strategic move to halt#RAMinflation on EOS, the blockchain community has seen a surge in interest in RAM, noting the limited supply of RAM and catalyzing a massive price increase — RAM’s value has surged sixfold from its all-time lows. Amid this wave of increased demand and price appreciation, RAM has become a cornerstone of the EOS network, essential to its operations and overall efficiency. This exploration will delve into RAM’s critical role, examining how RAM’s scarcity, determined by the hardware limitations of node operators, reinforces its intrinsic value. By bootstrapping a user-led RAM trading market, regulated by the Bancor algorithm to maintain fair pricing and liquidity, we will illuminate RAM’s integral role in the EOS ecosystem and affirm its status as a critical network resource.
EOS RAM: The cornerstone of blockchain performance and efficiency
EOS RAM is essential to the operation of the blockchain, and it is more than just storage, it also holds the working state of the chain in physical memory to achieve performance goals. This state contains elements such as contract tables, account permissions, structures that facilitate lightweight verification, etc. EOS users are effectively "billed" for the use of physical memory through RAM, such as operations such as adding new table rows. This process ensures efficient data access and transaction processing, which is essential for the seamless operation and growth of EOS applications. In contrast, less critical data (such as historical information or data not involved in protocol consensus) is stored on slower disk storage. RAM is not just a storage medium, but a foundational component that supports the overall performance and functionality of the EOS ecosystem.
Bancor Algorithm: Enhancing EOS RAM Transactions
EOS utilizes a free market system to allocate its limited resource, RAM. Through the EOS system contract, users can buy and sell RAM using the blockchain's native EOS tokens. This process not only ensures liquidity in the RAM market, but also helps discover the right price for RAM. As the availability of unallocated RAM decreases, the Automated Market Maker (AMM) increases the price of the remaining RAM. This market operation is controlled by the Bancor Relay algorithm, which plays a key role in the dynamic pricing mechanism.
History of EOS RAM
In June 2018, the EOS blockchain launched with 64GB of RAM. A proposal was subsequently enacted to gradually increase the RAM supply to support network growth and keep dApp and account creation costs reasonable. Over the years, this resulted in RAM increasing by 64GB per year. However, as the supply of RAM began to exceed 400GB, concerns about oversupply, undervaluation, and hardware limitations began to arise. Notably, higher RAM requirements would increase infrastructure costs for node operators, raising barriers to entry and potentially hindering further decentralization of the network. These factors ultimately led to a proposal to stop RAM inflation, which was agreed upon by a supermajority of block producers on December 17, 2023.
EOS RAM: The RWA Powerhouse for the Web3 Economy
Following the proposal to stop RAM inflation on EOS, the blockchain ecosystem has witnessed a massive surge in interest in RAM, acknowledging its scarcity and driving RAM prices up six-fold from their all-time lows. Increased activity from individual users, dApp developers, and new inscription projects highlights the critical importance of RAM for blockchain operations, including account creation, which directly impacts RAM demand.
EOS<>The RAM market in particular, exhibits exceptional liquidity, dwarfing even the deepest pair on Defibox (EOS).<>USDT, with 24M EOS bilateral liquidity depth. This impressive liquidity, with a total value locked (TVL) of 12M EOS, reflects a $16M strong pool that not only generates a lot of fees for the network, but also epitomizes the liquidity that the protocol has.
Every RAM transaction on EOS generates a 0.5% transaction fee driven by the Bancor Relay algorithm, providing a significant revenue stream. This mechanism has driven a massive influx of over 78,000 EOS in fees to the EOS Resource Exchange (REX) in just one month, providing additional revenue opportunities for EOS stakeholders. The increase in trading activity, coupled with a significant increase in network revenue and growth in TVL, highlights EOS RAM’s transformation journey into a native web3 real-world asset (RWA), stimulating the vitality and economic framework of the EOS ecosystem.
In addition to the dynamics of RAM usage, the EOS EVM has been a significant player, generating more than 308,025 EOS in fees in recent months. A portion of these fees were strategically used to purchase approximately 1.8GB of EOS RAM, enhancing the EVM’s memory storage capabilities and illustrating the intertwined relationship between RAM requirements and dApp functionality.
Upland, a prominent dApp on EOS with a massive user base of 2.5 million as of May 2022, exemplifies intensive RAM consumption within the EOS ecosystem, utilizing 6.7GB to sustain its operations. The heavy usage of Upland and similar dApps further amplifies the need for RAM, reinforcing the critical role of RAM in the seamless functionality and scaling of the EOS network and dApps.
These developments outline the multifaceted value of EOS RAM, from powering dApp ecosystems like Upland to supporting the EOS EVM to enabling account creation and transaction processing, thus solidifying its position as an indispensable asset in the Web3 economy.
Diverse Uses of EOS RAM: Powering the EOS Ecosystem
EOS RAM is an integral part of blockchain functionality, facilitating a range of operations from account creation to dApp execution. It is a user-managed resource that is essential for storing important data and ensuring applications run smoothly on EOS Native.
EOS Native RAM Usage: Driving Digital Innovation
EOS native inscription
Due to its high transaction capacity, EOS Native has enormous inscription potential, exceeding EOS EVM by at least five times. Combined with minimal transaction fees, this makes EOS Native an ideal choice for both traditional data logging and unique inscription methods. Unlike EVM-based networks, EOS Native’s unique storage mechanism supports storing inscriptions in novel ways, eliminating the need for off-chain indexers. The team at Greymass is exploring innovative ways to write data to RAM using these unique features of EOS Native.
Random Access Memory
RAMS, originally a RAM-based inscription project on EOS, is a project that is constantly evolving based on community feedback. Its development history has been vibrant, with the community actively contributing ideas. As the price of RAM has risen, the project has gained more attention, leading to proposals for various features such as a native chain inscription exchange and a RAM trading market. Currently, the focus is on integrating RAMS with the BTC L2 solution on EOS. The minting of RAMS continues, as does its continued development and the active role of its holders in shaping its future. You can view the original RAMS Scriber, or use the alternative RAMS Minter built with Wharf
EOS EVM RAM usage: increasing demand
EOS EVM significantly impacts RAM usage by blending EOS’s native resources with the EVM’s framework. Gas fees are paid in EOS tokens, covering computational costs including RAM, compliant with EVM standards while being integrated into EOS Native’s token economy. This blend highlights the need to balance operational costs and transaction fee revenue.
As mentioned previously, the EOS EVM has generated a significant amount of fees in recent months, exceeding 308,025 EOS, a large portion of which (108,889 EOS) was used to purchase approximately 1.8GB of EOS RAM. This activity directly increases RAM demand and emphasizes its scarcity, demonstrating the role of the EOS EVM in the evolving resource landscape of the EOS ecosystem.
NFTs on EOS EVM: The new wave of digital assets
NFTs on the EOS EVM, primarily through the ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards, are becoming significant RAM consumers. While these formats support a wide range of digital assets from unique collectibles to multi-purpose tokens, they still require a significant amount of RAM for their operational efficiency. This consumption highlights the growing impact of NFTs on EOS network resources.
Projects like EZswap are at the forefront of the new NFT wave, driving increased RAM usage on the EOS EVM. As the ecosystem grows, emerging NFT scenarios will further intensify RAM demand, highlighting the critical balance between digital asset innovation and the underlying blockchain infrastructure.
EOS EVM Inscription
Inscription on the EOS EVM involves writing arbitrary data to the chain’s history via the calldata field, which reduces the cost of data transfer because it is stored in the history, not the state. However, this also means that the data is not accessible in smart contracts, limiting its use in indexes and off-chain applications until it is written to the state. View the EOS EVM Inscription Advanced Guide.
Tokenized RAM: Revolutionizing EOS with bRAM
bRAM is a novel tokenized RAM certificate issued by Defibox, redefining resource allocation on the EOS blockchain. This innovative token has unprecedented flexibility, allowing it to be transferred, traded, or used in numerous DeFi applications. bRAM holders can enjoy a range of enhanced features in the Defibox ecosystem, from participating in low-fee transactions in the Swap protocol to using bRAM as collateral for USN stablecoins or lending other tokens.
The tokenization of RAM with bRAM extends its utility beyond traditional boundaries, making it tradable on EVM platforms like Noah and even centralized exchanges like Big.one. This wider market access not only democratizes the RAM market to a wider range of traders, but also expands the liquidity depth of the entire ecosystem. The presence of bRAM on AMM platforms and centralized exchanges promotes a dynamic arbitrage environment, coordinating prices between different pools and protocol-owned liquidity pools, thereby generating additional fees for REX stakers.
This multifaceted approach to RAM usage through bRAM paves the way for more innovative and efficient use of blockchain resources, solidifying bRAM’s position as a versatile and valuable asset in the EOS ecosystem. To explore bRAM and its applications in depth, visit the Defibox website.
Further Evolution of RAM on EOS
As a dynamic protocol, EOS is constantly evolving, including with regard to RAM management. Current limitations of RAM, such as challenges with transaction storage management and resource cost balancing, are being addressed. To address these issues, several proposals have been made to modify the functionality of RAM. These changes are intended to enhance the flexibility, efficiency, and overall utility of RAM in the EOS ecosystem. Below is a summary of these proposed changes, along with links to their respective GitHub issues for detailed discussion and insights. Each of these proposals offers a unique approach to optimizing RAM usage in EOS:
Transferable RAM: Introducing free RAM transfers between accounts.
RAM Logging and Notification: Added inline operations to acknowledge bytes sent or received in a RAM transaction.
Destroy RAM: Allows users to destroy RAM from their accounts.
Buy RAM for yourself: The buyramself action is recommended for added security.
Added operation return values to RAM operations: To provide the exact amount of RAM affected by a transaction.
How to buy RAM on EOS
If you want to buy RAM on EOS, you have a few options:
Anchor Desktop: Direct in-app purchases
Newdex: Execute trades on DEX
bloks.io: Use their browser interface, see this tutorial
EOS Authority: Using their browser interface
Unicove: Using their browser interface
How to Buy bRAM
bRAM is a tradable RAM resource certificate
Defibox: Purchase via Account Resources Section
NoahArk: Executing Trades on DEX
How to Check RAM Prices
Newdex
EOS Authority
Eoseyes
EOS RAM: The Evolution of Web3’s Intrinsic Value
The dynamic evolution of EOS RAM, from its scarcity-driven value to its appeal as a native web3 RWA, marks a turning point in the evolution of EOS and the on-chain value dynamics. An exploration of RAM’s market impact, its integration with various applications, and ongoing community-driven enhancements provides a glimpse into the future of digital resources. For those keen to delve deeper into this fascinating aspect of EOS and its impact on the wider blockchain ecosystem, more detailed insights are just a click away.
