An Empirical Analysis of EOS Blockchain: Architecture, Contract, and Security
Haiyang Liu, Yingjie Mao, Xiaoqi Li
TL;DR
The paper provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of the EOS blockchain across architecture, decentralization, performance, smart contracts, and behavioral security. It leverages XBlock data and real-world attack cases to quantify EOS's architectural design, governance dynamics, throughput gaps, and vulnerability landscape. Key findings include notable decentralization and activity gaps, a substantial gap between actual throughput and claimed TPS, five common EOSIO smart contract vulnerabilities, and multiple attack vectors targeting EOSIO's architecture. The work offers actionable insights for tightening security, improving regulatory oversight, and guiding future EOS ecosystem enhancements.
Abstract
With the rapid development of blockchain technology, various blockchain systems are exhibiting vitality and potential. As a representative of Blockchain 3.0, the EOS blockchain has been regarded as a strong competitor to Ethereum. Nevertheless, compared with Bitcoin and Ethereum, academic research and in-depth analyses of EOS remain scarce. To address this gap, this study conducts a comprehensive investigation of the EOS blockchain from five key dimensions: system architecture, decentralization, performance, smart contracts, and behavioral security. The architectural analysis focuses on six core components of the EOS system, detailing their functionalities and operational workflows. The decentralization and performance evaluations, based on data from the XBlock data-sharing platform, reveal several critical issues: low account activity, limited participation in the supernode election process, minimal variation in the set of block producers, and a substantial gap between actual throughput and the claimed million-level performance. Five types of contract vulnerabilities are identified in the smart contract dimension, and four mainstream vulnerability detection platforms are introduced and comparatively analyzed. In terms of behavioral security, four real-world attacks targeting the structural characteristics of EOS are summarized. This study contributes to the ongoing development of the EOS blockchain and provides valuable insights for enhancing the security and regulatory mechanisms of blockchain ecosystems.