Bitmain, Chinese manufacturer of mining equipment, and Bitfinex, suspected of manipulating the bitcoin price, have become two of the 21 block producers in the EOS network, with Bitfinex being the largest one.

Bitmain, known as the manufacturer of ASIC-miners, gained support of a sufficient number of votes to become one of 21 EOS block producers who process transactions and govern the EOS blockchain in accordance with the constitution of the project.

EOS AntPool, a subsidiary of the AntPool mining pool owned by Bitmain, received the status of the block producer.

According to the latest statistics, EOS AntPool earns 845 EOS ($7,300) per day for confirming transactions.

EOS users fear that Bitmain being included in the list of block producers, the decentralization of EOS can be compromised. They recall the situation in the bitcoin network, where Bitmain, AntPool and another Bitmain owned ViaBTC mining pool produce about 50% of the bitcoin blocks.

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, accused of affiliations with Tether and manipulating the bitcoin price, is also a EOS block producer. Bitfinex EOS1 is now the largest block producer, earning about 1020 EOS ($9,000) per day.

EOS block producers are entities that operate and govern the EOS blockchain on behalf of the EOS. Block producers are elected by the EOS stakeholders therefore they're likely to campaign to attract votes from the EOS community. BPs work for and are incentivized by the blockchain owning their share of block rewards in the form of EOS tokens. Apart from transaction confirmations, BPs are given limited and checked authority to freeze aberrant accounts, update defective applications and propose hard forking.