EOS RAM: The Hidden Gem of Blockchain Infrastructure
Disclaimer: None of the information provided in this article constitutes financial advice. It’s important to remember that engaging with DeFi carries inherent risks, and individuals should conduct thorough research and exercise caution when engaging with DeFi projects.
Following a strategic move to halt RAM inflation on EOS, the blockchain community has experienced a surge of interest in RAM, noting its limited supply and catalyzing a significant price increase—RAM values have soared sixfold from their historical lows. Amid this wave of heightened demand and rising prices, RAM emerges as the cornerstone of the EOS network, essential for its operation and overall effectiveness. This exploration will delve into the critical role of RAM, examining how its scarcity, dictated by the hardware limits of node operators, enhances its intrinsic value. By navigating the user-led market for RAM trading, regulated by the Bancor algorithm to maintain equitable pricing and liquidity, we will shed light on RAM’s indispensable role within the EOS ecosystem, affirming its status as a key network resource.
EOS RAM: The Keystone of Blockchain Performance and Efficiency
EOS RAM is essential for the blockchain’s operation, going beyond mere storage, it preserves the working state of the chain in physical memory to achieve performance objectives. This state encompasses elements such as contract tables, account permissions, and structures that facilitate light validation, among other aspects. EOS users are effectively “billed” for their use of physical memory through RAM, such as operations like adding new table rows. This process ensures efficient data access and transaction processing, essential for the seamless operation and growth of EOS applications. In contrast, less critical data, like 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 underpinning the entire performance and capability of the EOS ecosystem.
The Bancor Algorithm: Enhancing EOS RAM Trading
EOS utilizes a free-market system for the allocation of its limited resource, RAM. Through EOS system contracts, 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 aids in discovering the right price for RAM. As the availability of unallocated RAM decreases, an automated market maker (AMM) increases the price for the remaining RAM. This market operation is governed by the Bancor Relay algorithm, which plays a key role in this dynamic pricing mechanism.
History of EOS RAM
In June of 2018, The EOS blockchain launched with 64GB of RAM. A proposal to incrementally increase the RAM supply was subsequently enacted to support network growth and keep dApp and account creation costs reasonable. Over the years, this led to an annual RAM increase of 64GB. However, as the supply of RAM began to exceed 400GB, concerns emerged about overabundance, undervaluation, and hardware constraints. Notably, higher RAM requirements increase infrastructure costs for node operators, raising the barrier to entry and potentially hampering further decentralization of the network. These factors culminated in a new proposal to stop RAM inflation that reached consensus among a supermajority of block producers on December 17th, 2023.
EOS RAM: The RWA Powerhouse of Web3 Economy
Following the proposal to halt RAM inflation on EOS, the blockchain ecosystem has witnessed a significant surge in interest towards RAM, acknowledging its scarcity and driving RAM prices to a sixfold increase from their historic lows. This heightened activity from individual users, dApp developers, and new inscription projects underscores the vital importance of RAM for blockchain operations, including account creation, which directly influences RAM demand.
The EOS<>RAM market, in particular, showcases remarkable liquidity, dwarfing even the deepest liquidity pair on Defibox (EOS<>USDT) with a 24 million EOS bilateral liquidity depth. This impressive liquidity, with 12 million EOS in Total Value Locked (TVL) within the pool, reflects a robust $16 million pool that not only generates significant fees for the network but also epitomizes protocol-owned liquidity.
Each RAM transaction on EOS, facilitated by the Bancor Relay algorithm, incurs a 0.5% trading fee, contributing to a considerable revenue stream. This mechanism has catalyzed a substantial inflow of over 78,000 EOS in fees into the EOS Resource Exchange (REX) within just a month, offering an additional yield-earning opportunity for EOS stakeholders. This uptick in trading activity, combined with the substantial network revenue and growth in TVL, highlights the transformative journey of EOS RAM into a native web3 Real World Asset (RWA), invigorating the EOS ecosystem’s vibrancy and economic framework.
Adding to the dynamics of RAM usage, the EOS EVM has been a significant player, with recent months witnessing over 308,025 EOS in generated fees. A portion of these fees has been strategically utilized to purchase approximately 1.8GB of EOS RAM, bolstering the EVM’s memory storage capabilities and illustrating the intertwined relationship between RAM demand and dApp functionality.
Upland, a notable dApp on EOS with a vast user base of 2.5 million as of May 2022, exemplifies the intensive RAM consumption within the EOS ecosystem, utilizing 6.7GB to sustain its operations. This heavy usage by Upland and similar dApps further amplifies the demand for RAM, reinforcing its critical role in the seamless functionality and expansion of the EOS network and dApps.
Together, these developments encapsulate the multifaceted value of EOS RAM, from fueling dApp ecosystems like Upland and supporting the EOS EVM to enabling account creation and transaction processing, thereby cementing its status as an indispensable asset within the Web3 economy.
Diverse Uses of EOS RAM: Powering EOS Ecosystem
EOS RAM is integral to the blockchain’s functionality, facilitating a range of operations from account creation to dApp execution. It’s a resource managed by users, crucial for storing vital data and ensuring the smooth running of applications on EOS Native.
EOS Native RAM Usage: Fueling Digital Innovation
Inscriptions on EOS Native
EOS Native’s potential for inscriptions is significant due to its high transaction capacity, which surpasses EOS EVM at least fivefold. Combined with minimal transaction fees, this makes EOS Native ideal for both traditional data logging and unique inscription methods. Unlike EVM-based networks, EOS Native’s distinct storage mechanism enables novel ways of storing inscriptions, eliminating the need for off-chain indexers. The team at Greymass is exploring innovative methods to inscribe data onto RAM, leveraging these unique features of EOS Native.
RAMS
RAMS, originally a RAM-based inscription project on EOS, is an evolving project shaped by community feedback. Its development journey has been dynamic, with the community actively contributing ideas. As RAM prices rose, the project gained more attention, leading to proposals for varied functionalities like a native chain inscription exchange and a RAM trading market. Currently, the focus is on integrating RAMS with a BTC L2 solution on EOS. The minting of RAMS continues, as does its ongoing development and the active role of its holders in shaping its future. You can check out the Original RAMS Scriber, or this Alternative RAMS Minter built using Wharf
EOS EVM RAM Usage: Intensifying Demand
The EOS EVM significantly influences RAM usage by melding EOS’s native resources with the EVM’s framework. Gas fees, paid in EOS tokens, cover computational costs including RAM, aligning with EVM standards while integrating into EOS Native’s tokenomics. This blend highlights the need to balance operational costs against transaction fee revenues.
As previously mentioned, the EOS EVM generated substantial fees, over 308,025 EOS, in recent months, with a considerable portion, 108,889 EOS, used to purchase around 1.8GB of EOS RAM. This activity directly boosts RAM demand and emphasizes its scarcity, showcasing the EOS EVM’s role in the EOS ecosystem’s evolving resource landscape.
NFTs on EOS EVM: A 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 enable a broad range of digital assets from unique collectibles to versatile tokens, their operational efficiency still demands considerable RAM. This consumption underscores the growing impact of NFTs on the EOS network’s resources.
Projects like EZswap are at the forefront of this new NFT wave, driving increased RAM usage on the EOS EVM. As the ecosystem evolves, the burgeoning NFT scene is set to intensify RAM demand further, highlighting the critical balance between innovation in digital assets and the underlying blockchain infrastructure.
Inscriptions on EOS EVM
Inscriptions on EOS EVM involve writing arbitrary data into the chain’s history via the calldata field, reducing the cost of data transmission since it’s stored in history, not state. However, this also means the data isn’t accessible within smart contracts, limiting its use to indexing and off-chain applications until it’s written into state. Check out the Advanced Guide to Inscriptions on EOS EVM.
Tokenized RAM: Revolutionizing EOS with bRAM
bRAM, a novel tokenized RAM certificate issued by Defibox, redefines resource allocation on the EOS blockchain. This innovative token allows for unprecedented flexibility, enabling it to be transferred, traded, or utilized across a myriad of DeFi applications. bRAM holders enjoy a range of enhanced functionalities within the Defibox ecosystem, from participating in low-fee transactions within the Swap protocol to using bRAM as collateral for the USN stablecoin or for 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 on centralized exchanges such as Big.one. This broader market accessibility not only democratizes the RAM market for a wider array of traders but also amplifies liquidity depth across the ecosystem. The presence of bRAM on AMM platforms and centralized exchanges fosters a dynamic arbitrage environment, harmonizing prices across different pools and the protocol-owned liquidity pool, thereby generating additional fees for REX stakers.
This multi-faceted approach to RAM usage through bRAM paves the way for more innovative and efficient use of blockchain resources, cementing bRAM’s position as a versatile and valuable asset within the EOS ecosystem. For an in-depth exploration of bRAM and its applications, visit the Defibox website.
The further Evolution of RAM on EOS
EOS, as a dynamic protocol, constantly evolves, including in RAM management. Current limitations of RAM, such as the challenges in transactional storage management and the balancing of resource costs, are being addressed. To tackle these issues, several proposals have been put forth to modify RAM functionality. These changes aim to enhance the flexibility, efficiency, and overall utility of RAM within the EOS ecosystem. Below are summaries of these proposed changes, with links to their respective GitHub issues for detailed discussion and insights. Each of these proposals offers a unique approach to refining RAM usage in EOS:
- Transferable RAM: Introduces feeless RAM transfer between accounts.
- RAM Logging & Notifications: Adds inline actions for confirming bytes sent or received in RAM transactions.
- Burn RAM: Allows users to burn RAM from their accounts.
- Buy RAM for Self: Proposes a buyramself action to enhance security.
- Add Action Return Values to RAM Actions: Aims to provide exact amounts of RAM affected by transactions.
How to Buy RAM on EOS
Should you wish to buy RAM on EOS, you have several options:
- Anchor Desktop: Purchase directly within the app
- Newdex: Execute transactions on the DEX
- bloks.io: Use their browser interface, refer to this tutorial
- EOS Authority: Use their browser interface
- Unicove: Use their browser interface
How to Buy bRAM
bRAM is a Tradeable RAM Resource Certificate
- Defibox: Buy via the Account Resources section
- NoahArk: Execute transactions on the DEX
How To Check the RAM Price
EOS RAM: The Evolution of Intrinsic Value in Web3
The evolving dynamics of EOS RAM, from its scarcity-driven value to its appeal as a native Web3 RWA marks a turning point in EOS evolution and the dynamics of on-chain value. This exploration into RAM’s market impact, its integration into various applications, and the ongoing community-driven enhancements, offers a glimpse into the future of digital resources. For those keen on delving deeper into this fascinating aspect of EOS and its implications in the broader blockchain ecosystem, more detailed insights are just a click away.
EOS Network
The EOS Network is a 3rd generation blockchain platform powered by the EOS VM, a low-latency, highly performant, and extensible WebAssembly engine for deterministic execution of near feeless transactions; purpose-built for enabling optimal Web3 user and developer experiences. EOS is the flagship blockchain and financial center of the Antelope framework, serving as the driving force behind multi-chain collaboration and public goods funding for tools and infrastructure through the EOS Network Foundation (ENF).
EOS EVM
The EOS EVM is an emulation of the Ethereum EVM, housed within an EOS smart contract. It offers feature parity to other EVMs in the space but with unmatched speed, performance and compatibility. EOS EVM connects the EOS ecosystem to the Ethereum ecosystem by allowing developers to deploy a wide array of Solidity-based digital assets and innovative dApps on EOS. Developers can use EOS EVM to take advantage of Ethereum’s battle-tested open source code, tooling, libraries and SDKs, while leveraging the superior performance of EOS.
EOS Network Foundation
The EOS Network Foundation (ENF) was forged through a vision for a prosperous and decentralized future. Through our key stakeholder engagement, community programs, ecosystem funding, and support of an open technology ecosystem, the ENF is transforming Web3. Founded in 2021, the ENF is the hub for EOS Network, a leading open source platform with a suite of stable frameworks, tools, and libraries for blockchain deployments. Together, we are bringing innovations that our community builds and are committed to a stronger future for all.
