The EOS blockchain is now live.

At press time, the blockchain has received more than the 150 million votes needed to determine the individuals or entities that will maintain the distributed network, the world's fifth largest by total value, thus ending a weeks-long process that had been among the most complex the evolving cryptocurrency market has perhaps ever seen.

As such, the news effectively ensures that the software for which a company called Block.one raised more than $4 billion during an almost year-long initial coin offering (ICO) will now be accessible. According to best estimates, the blockchain began operations at 17:46 UTC.

This happened after a roughly a week of deliberation and testing by block producer candidates – those groups vying for one of 21 validator node spots in which they will receive rewards for verifying transactions – from all around the world. While that testing phase uncovered several vulnerabilities that caused two groups to go head-to-head on the correct implementation and delays for the launch, on June 9, block producer candidates voted unanimously in favor of launching the blockchain.

As per the project's process, that percentage was the two-thirds +1 of the candidate community to initiate the launch, but also per the plan, the blockchain wasn't officially live until further validation had been completed, an appointed block producer launched the chain and then 15 percent of EOS holdings had voted.

And once 15 percent of token holders had voted to establish the set of 21 elected block producers, the chain became active. This took longer than many had anticipated for many reasons, including security concerns with the voting process.

Following the launch, tokens were trading at $10.45.

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