A recent article caught my attention as it contained significant allegations against the business practices of companies envolved in EOS and weaknesses of its governance system.

Basically it is about Crypto-Investment-Firm INBlockchain, that for one has been listed as one of the major investors into Block.one, the company behind @Dan & Co. that are currently launching Eos. Then this company is also invested into several China based Block Producer candidates, namely: @eosgravity, EOS Ono (affiliated to @onosocial), EOS Lao Mao and @oraclechain. Finally INBlockchain seems to run themselves for Block producer now.

Discussion ensured in a Telegram chat one week ago, with Dan basically denying allegations and promising further investigation

EOS - Peeking under the hood - Shady centralisation attempt with Block.one involved?

Despite the heated discussion on EOS Telegram chat, there is not much to find on this subject on the net. The article by @evolutionos containing the allegations is evidently the only article ever published by them on steemit (there are a few more on medium), the original article on medium features a response from Dan:
https://medium.com/@bytemaster/neither-block-one-a254c23f7d2e

There is one single item of media coverage, that sums up the situation.
https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/eos-cryptocurrency-project-gets-scrunity-over-block-producers-miners/

Then there is a brief discussion of the subject on reddit. But that's all.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/8bgwy9/eos_team_is_suspected_of_colluding_with_vcs_and/

So much it's clear, that despite (premature) rebuttal by dan, INBlockchain has been listed as one of Block.Io s major investors up to the website relaunch, that can be easily found on webarchive:

This has now been removed along with all other mentions of investors. INblockchain has also removed Brandon Blumer who had been listed as their adviser previously. The mentioned Block Producers candidates seem in fact to be affiliated to InBlockchain, at least that's what a further google research brings forward quite a few connections.

What to make all of it?

First of all it's against block.ones policy to invest into or to endorse any blockproducers.
Practically if INBlockchain is a key investor into b1 and b1 again holding 10% of tokens which they will use to vote for block producers, a possible conflict of interest comes to light.
In a worst case scenario, INBlockchain could make block.one to vote for its 5 (and maybe more) bp candidates.

Still even in a worst case scenario 5 bps would likely still not be sufficient to effectively manipulate the blockchain, and also the 10% voting power of b1 might not be sufficient to effectively vote all of this 5 bp in. And also we don't know of the weigt of IBC's investment int block.one.

Nevertheless this looks like a significant conflict of interest and the covering up of these relations, and just removing the hints from website is everything else but reassuring. b1 in particular seems to have developped a quasi orwellian attitude of trying to undo facts buy changing their publications.

EvolutionOs is apparently furthering their own agenda which is to set-up their own blockchain, technically based on EOS but with a radically different governance. What they've brought yet is substantial enough to be addressed properly.

So what is necessary now is the contrary to covering up, all parties involved need to provide detailed clarification on this matters, and how and why the brought up allegations are either wrong, or COIs will be dealt with. Only that will be able to cleanse their reputations, and more importantly not longer stain the project as such.

What is your view on this? Do you have additional information on the issue?

The information provided here sums up the results of my own - finite - research. If you've found this piece interesting or useful, please up-vote and resteem and help spread the word. If you have spotted anything to add, please throw in your thoughts and comments! I am always happy to discuss and learn! Finally, none of this is financial advice, do you own research if you consider investing.