The launch of the EOS blockchain has been a giant experiment in remote self-organization.

Tonight, it took a big leap forward. As anticipated, candidates for the role of validators or "block producers" (EOS's equivalent of bitcoin miners) located all over the world voted "Go" to take the mainnet live.

EOS is a distributed proof-of-stake blockchain created by Block.One, whose co-founder, Dan Larimer, has pioneered similar systems with BitShares and Steem. The company raised $4 billion to develop the open source software over a year-long initial coin offering.

No one really knew what would happen when the company turned its code over to the world, but with this vote it's coming more clear.

As the software approached release, a group of organizations vying to serve as block producers found each other and formed the EOS Mainnet Launch Group (EMLG). They have so far managed to agree on a number of things, most importantly that they would launch one mainnet for EOS.

Well over 100 candidate organizations participated in a call that started gathering at 1:00 UTC Saturday and the vote occurred roughly 45 minutes later, as over 1800 people watched. The vote to "Go / No Go" was unanimous or very nearly so; the moderators did not report out a final count. The meeting was streamed on YouTube by EOS GO.

With this vote, a set of appointed block producers will move to take the network live. These groups have already been designated. This initial network should be stood up at 13:00 UTC, according to a plan presented during the stream. From there, additional validation will be necessary before it takes the final steps to launch.

According to the EOS Mainnet Launch order of events, initiation of the network by appointed block producers will be followed by at least 48 hours of additional testing. Barring major bugs, EOS holders will then be invited to vote for a set of block producers.

EOS goes live once 15 percent of tokens outstanding have been staked to votes and the first set of elected block producers have been established.

As we previously reported, there's still a lot of issues to watch once that happens.

Many of these block producer candidates have put in a lot of time, money and work up to now. Will the ones who don't secure a coveted validator spot honor their promises or will they move to launch a rival version EOS?

SpaceX Hispasat 30W-6 Launch photo is public domain.