This is the second part of a series to critically asses the EOS project. Here is the link to the first article: Part 1 - Yet another ico?

How will the EOS blockchain be established?

If you read the (in)famous EOS token purchase agreement, one thing - among others - will strike you: "3. Company (node.one) will not configure and/or launch any public blockchain platform adopting the open source EOS.IO Software (the “EOS Platform”) for any purpose;"

So what this means is, that the good people from block.one will gladly take your ico money, but they won't setup any blockchain in return, they basically promise to not deliver anything other than the software framework itself. And btw. one of their - now former - advisers, Brock Piere, has a track record of disappearing with VC money already from back in the dotcom era...

So enough of red flags to keep a safe distance from this ico? Let's take a closer look!

If block.one won't set up the EOS blockchain, who will?

According to the agreement it will be done by undetermined third parties. To keep it short, the blockchain is to be established by the so called block producers, who will install and run the EOS.io blockchain software and provide the necessary technical setup for this, like server infrastructure, hardware, storage etc. Their reward will be yet inflation of EOS coins, capped by 5% p.a. According to the DPOS consensus there will be a fixed number of 21 block producers who are elected by EOS stakeholders.
This video here provides a great overview on how a blockproducer is supposed to operate

So who might this be?
In fact there is a lively community (basically represented by @EOSgo) that has setup up formal requirements for block producers candidates. Their latest report (from March 14) lists 54 candidates who have applied (and a few new ones introduced themselves since then):
https://steemit.com/eos/@eosgo/block-producer-candidate-report-2-march-14-2018

Steemer @tsto has made an effort to research the accounts here:
https://steemit.com/eos/@tsto/or-eos-or-list-of-block-producer-candidates-introduced-on-stemmit-or-update-0001-2017-03-18-or

Quite impressive isn't it? Although only a fraction of these candidates meet the set-up criteria as of now, there are a lot of proposals out there, teams introducing themselves and discussions of the optimnal technical setups: So it is in fact highly likely there will be a pool of operators here to jump in after June 3 and bring the EOS blockchain to life.

So block producers are elected, right...? Wait, who is going to be able to vote, when there is no blockchain yet?

Genesis really is a bitch! Without any system in place, how will the initial block producers be determined? This is a very obscure part, and i guess decisions are yet in the making, but it looks like there will be some involvement of block.one after all.

To sum it up, among a list of candidates (will it be the EOSgo one?), 21 will be chosen at random to launch the blockchain. The Block Producer to create the genesis block, will even need to drop out after the first round, disclose his operations for audit, and subsequently is barred from the first rounds of bp elections for a while. I assume this is for the community to check if the chain has been established correctly. After that BPs will be determined by stake voting.

It looks like the launch of the chain will really be an exciting moment in time, with lot's of changes in voted parties. Here are the sources, check it out, there's a lot more detail here:
https://forums.eosgo.io/discussion/361/once-upon-a-time-bios-booting-an-eosio-blockchain
https://steemit.com/eos/@eosgo/eos-sit-down-q-and-a-with-thomas-cox-part-2-of-2

There is a chance, that more than one EOS chain comes to live, with block-producers launching their chain independently from the above process, Dan himself has hinted at that possibility, but little is certain about this. Maybe it'll be unsuccessful bp candidates from the early rounds?

Summary

So as we've seen, there is a sufficient number of candidates willing to and even competing for bringing the EOS blockchain to live. And you as a stakeholder will be able to vote for the best offers.
The beauty of it, with node.one not being involved in that directly, the EOS project will be driven by the community from the beginning, thus promising a decentralized set-up right away from start of the mainnet.

So the community and mechanism are all there there. So now really everything depends on the EOS.io software provided by node.one. This i will examine in the part 3 of this series.

The information provided here sums up the results of my own - finite - research. So if you see anything inaccurate, or if you have any addition, or interpret things differently, please throw in your thoughts and comments! I am always happy to discuss and learn!