In the ever-evolving landscape of blockchain and decentralized technologies, Elastos stands out as a project that has captured the attention and sparked the curiosity of enthusiasts and industry observers alike. Elastos is a decentralized project building a comprehensive and interoperable open source Web3 platform. Elastos leverages a state-of-the-art Web3 tech stack and blockchain functionality to deliver an inclusive internet experience for all users. However, like any innovative endeavor, Elastos has not been immune to misconceptions. This article aims to debunk 5 of the most prevalent myths relating to Elastos and shed light on the reality of this revolutionary project.
Myth 1: Elastos is a Chinese project
While Elastos has lots of history and ties in the China region, it’s definitely a global project. A total of 63 nodes are participating in the Elastos Bonded Proof of Stake (BPoS) that make up the majority of continents in the world. The Cyber Republic Council has diverse members spanning the globe. Representatives in North America, Europe, and Asia are all working together to achieve the goal of building a vibrant and functional ecosystem for Elastos.
Moreover, projects built on Elastos are not limited to a specific geographic region. The platform’s premier NFT marketplace, Elacity, is in the United Kingdom. CreDA, the decentralized credit ratings service on Elastos, is based in the United Kingdom. The world-class market-making firm Kairon Labs, who’s worked with Elastos in building liquidity and listing ELA on more prominent exchanges, is based in the Netherlands. Elastos’ answer to Twitter is called Feeds. This social media messaging dApp is based out of Japan.
Elabox, the project that built hardware to browse the Smart Web, now turned into a software-based product, is housed in the Philippines. Glide Finance, the leading DEX for the Elastos ecosystem, has its operation in North America. Developers and builders worldwide are creating a vibrant ecosystem on the Elastos platform.
Myth 2: Elastos is just another crypto or blockchain project
Contrary to the common belief, Elastos encompasses a comprehensive suite of technologies that go far beyond blockchain. Elastos combines blockchain with other innovative technologies such as Hive, Runtime, Carrier, and DID (Decentralized Identifiers) to create a robust and secure Infrastructure for Web3.
DID is a crucial component of Elastos’ technology stack. DIDs enable users to have self-sovereign control over their digital identities. By leveraging blockchain, DIDs provide secure and tamper-proof identity management, allowing individuals to authenticate, interact, and transact in a decentralized manner. DIDs are integrated with Elastos’ various components, ensuring secure and authenticated communication within the ecosystem.
Hive is Elastos’ decentralized storage solution that enables users to store and manage their data in a secure and distributed manner. It leverages the power of blockchain to ensure data integrity, immutability, and censorship resistance. Hive allows users to have full control over their data and provides a foundation for building various applications and services within the Elastos ecosystem.
Runtime, on the other hand, is a three-tier operating system that provides a secure and sandboxed environment for dApps to operate. It establishes boundaries between users, the network, and dApps, ensuring privacy, data integrity, and protection against unauthorized access. Runtime is agnostic to different operating systems, allowing seamless communication between any machine or device.
Carrier is Elastos’ peer-to-peer network that operates in a decentralized and encrypted manner. It facilitates secure off-chain communication between virtual machines and dApps within the Elastos ecosystem. Carrier leverages Elastos DID to establish secure and authorized communication among participants without relying on traditional IP addresses. It ensures network safety by limiting connections to verified DIDs, enhancing trust and reliability.
In addition to these technologies, Elastos comprises the Elastos Main Chain and Elastos Side Chains. The Elastos Main Chain serves as the foundation and consensus layer of the ecosystem, providing security and immutability through merged mining with Bitcoin. The Elastos Side Chains, on the other hand, allows for scalability and flexibility by enabling the creation of customized side chains for specific applications or use cases including the Elastos Smart Contract Chain and Elastos Identity Chain.
By combining blockchain, decentralized storage, operating systems, peer-to-peer networking, and self-sovereign identity management, Elastos offers a comprehensive and holistic approach to building a secure and decentralized ecosystem. It goes beyond being just a blockchain project and provides a complete set of tools and technologies to empower users, protect data, and foster innovation in the digital realm.
Myth 3: Elastos is run by Elastos Foundation and has no leadership
While the Elastos Foundation is involved in supporting tech development, it’s important to note that Elastos has been led by decentralized leadership through the Cyber Republic Council DAO for several years.
The Cyber Republic Council is responsible for the third layer of the Elastic Consensus, known as the Cyber Republic Consensus (CRC), or Proof of Integrity (PoI). The Council consists of 12 seats that are elected annually through a community voting process. This consensus mechanism allows the Elastos community to review and determine the candidates who are best suited to represent the Cyber Republic DAO.
The Council’s primary role is to vote on Proposals that could impact the Elastos ecosystem. They also contribute to promoting community Suggestions and transforming them into formal Proposals. Notable Proposals in the past have included projects like Elacity, Feeds, and the BPoS consensus. These Proposals have had a significant impact in shaping the Elastos ecosystem.
The existence of the Cyber Republic Council and its role in the consensus mechanism dispels the myth that Elastos is solely governed by the Elastos Foundation. The decentralized leadership provided by the Council ensures community representation and involvement in the decision-making process, allowing for a more inclusive and democratic governance structure within the Elastos ecosystem.
Myth 4: Elastos has no marketing strategy
The lack of marketing has been a point of contention for the community for a number of years. Elastos has prided itself on developing the technology first and allowing the community to market the project on their own accord. Times have changed with Marketing. The Elastos Foundation (EF) focuses purely on technical development. However, the EF announced a change in strategy to help fund Marketing and Business Development to thrive for Elastos.
The Elavation Team, led by Fakhul Miah, has taken on the responsibility of spearheading marketing and business development efforts for Elastos. They passed a comprehensive Proposal in 2022 aimed at reinvigorating marketing, business development, and growth within the Elastos ecosystem.
The initiative set forth by Elavation seeks to drive technology adoption, raise awareness of the Elastos ecosystem, attract new users, develop collaborations, and secure investments for the platform’s growth. They have been actively working towards elevating Elastos as a leading Web3 technology and contributing to the development of a secure and data-owned internet.
One of the significant partnerships that Elavation has secured is with Alibaba, one of the biggest cloud services providers globally. Elastos and Alibaba Cloud have joined forces to facilitate the transition of Web2 enterprises into the Web3 space. By integrating Elastos’ decentralized identity, digital rights management, and wallet solutions, they offer comprehensive Web3 capabilities. The partnership explores incorporating Elastos DID with Alibaba’s eKYC service, enabling seamless connections between the real world and the Web3 environment, enhancing regulatory compliance and asset tokenization.
The collaboration provides Elastos with access to Alibaba Cloud’s extensive resources, market reach, and business expertise, while Alibaba Cloud gains access to Elastos’ advanced Web3 technologies, enabling innovative solutions for its customers. Through partnerships like this, Elastos actively addresses marketing concerns, expands its reach, onboards Web2 communities, and accelerates Web3 adoption.
Myth 5: Elastos is too complex to be understood
Elastos is indeed a complex project, but its mission is straightforward: empower users to own, monetize, or secure their data. Elastos offers transparent and secure solutions for businesses, financial services, and creative platforms. By eliminating middlemen and empowering individuals, Elastos enables users to control their finances, retain rights to their creations, and engage directly with audiences.
To understand Elastos’ mission, it’s important to first recognize the limitations and vulnerabilities of the current internet infrastructure and operating systems. Traditional operating systems, like Windows, macOS, and Linux, follow a two-tier structure where users interact with applications on the top floor while the operating system functions remain inaccessible to them on the lower floor. This design restricts users’ ability to provide direct instructions to the operating system for specific tasks.
The two-tier structure also creates security vulnerabilities, as viruses and attacks can easily penetrate applications and compromise users’ private data. Additionally, third-party vendors who create and deploy these operating systems often have complete control over users’ data, raising concerns about privacy and ownership. The absence of robust protections at the TCP/IP level further exposes users to data breaches and unauthorized access.
Elastos addresses these issues by introducing a new architecture that combines blockchain technology with a decentralized peer-to-peer network. It envisions a safer and more transparent internet where individuals have full ownership and control over their digital assets, data, and applications.
By leveraging blockchain, Elastos establishes a trust mechanism that allows individuals to prove ownership of their digital assets and protect them from unauthorized use or manipulation. Blockchain technology ensures transparency, immutability, and accountability, thereby enhancing security and reducing the risk of data corruption and theft.
Elastos also adopts a decentralized approach, where applications run on the Elastos Runtime, which is separate from the operating system. This separation isolates applications from the underlying infrastructure, making them less susceptible to attacks and reducing the impact of potential vulnerabilities in the operating system.
Furthermore, Elastos introduces a concept called Elastos Carrier, which is a decentralized peer-to-peer network layer. Elastos Carrier enables secure and direct communication between devices without relying on centralized servers, thereby mitigating the risks associated with third-party intermediaries and giving users more control over their data and privacy.
In summary, Elastos aims to create a more secure and user-centric internet by leveraging blockchain technology, decentralization, and a robust trust mechanism. By empowering individuals with ownership and control over their data and assets, Elastos seeks to foster a fair and equitable digital ecosystem where users can monetize their data and participate in the internet economy with confidence.
Give Us More Myths To Bust
For five years, Elastos has been quietly building a complete open source decentralized ecosystem that puts power back into the hands of users, allowing them to truly forge their own digital destinies. So it’s natural that misconceptions form. We hope this article helped dispel some of the major myths about Elastos.
It is a global project with a diverse team and operations worldwide. Elastos goes beyond being just a crypto or blockchain project, offering a comprehensive suite of technologies like Hive, Runtime, Carrier, and DID. The decentralized Cyber Republic Council ensures inclusive governance.
Marketing efforts led by Team Elavation have been actively promoting Elastos, including notable partnerships with Alibaba Cloud. Elastos’ mission is to create a secure and user-centric internet ecosystem. Overall, Elastos is an ambitious project pushing the boundaries of decentralized technologies.
If you want to see us add to this list, share your myths about Elastos and we’ll help clear the air.
