The EOS blockchain is now live.

What was perhaps one of the most hotly anticipated blockchain launches, after the company that developed its software, Block.one raised more than $4 billion during an almost year-long initial coin offering (ICO), is finally live as of 18:46 UTC on June 14.

At press time, the blockchain has received more than the 150 million votes needed to go live.

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 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 hadn’t 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 vote to establish the set of 21 elected block producers, the chain becomes active. This took longer than many had anticipated for many reasons, including security concerns with the voting process.

EOS Go broadcast a livestream of the final meeting of the EMLG before the mainnet went live. Despite what seemed like some aberrant behavior on the chain due to users attempting to post transactions early, they held a last symbolic “go / no go” vote and it was again unanimous. Once the chain was live, block producers moved immediately to claim their identities on the mainnet.

Blocks started flowing shortly thereafter and block producer candidates started registering their accounts, based on chatter on the livestream.

That said, the EOS token was trading at about $14.50 when the EMLG voted to launch the network. Over the days following, it fell as low as $9.44. Following the launch, tokens were trading at $10.45