The story of Elabox is one of evolution and vision. Beginning as a hardware solution for the Elastos ecosystem, the company aimed to revolutionize how people interact with the digital world, allowing users to host their own nodes, store their data and digital assets, and navigate the new Smart Web with ease.
The initial vision was met with excitement, as the first 108 Elaboxes sold out quickly, solidifying the community’s belief in the product. However, Covid hit in 2020 and impacted the supply chain, and Elabox had to shift gears.
But this was not a setback but an opportunity for even greater things. Just as BMW transitioned from aircraft motors to luxury cars and Apple from home computers to the iPod and iPhone, Elabox also saw the potential for something grander. The company decided to take on an even more ambitious vision to create a full-fledged decentralized app store for all web3 ecosystems.
This shift in direction represents a bold and awe-inspiring move, one that has the potential to shape the future of the digital world. With a clear vision and unwavering determination, Elabox plans to make a lasting impact on Web3 and the world beyond.
The Beginning of Elabox
The Elabox started as a unique personal cloud compute hardware device. It integrates Elastos technologies to provide a secure and safe platform for users to access the Elastos SmartWeb and its services and dApps. The Elabox is powered by a Raspberry Pi computer and comes pre-installed with ElaboxOS. The device runs several Elastos services, including the ELA mainchain, the DID sidechain and the Carrier network. By running their own nodes on the device, users can increase the security of their transactions and own their data. The device also includes an RPC crypto wallet with interoperability, swapping, and bridging features and supports smart contract operations associated with the Elastos Smart Contract Chain (ESC).
The device also has features such as automatic DID generation, seamless interactions with Web3 dApps and blockchains, one-click installation of dApps, dApp management, external drive support for SSD, DID authentication through Essentials, Hive, and IPFS support, and enhanced security.
The Next Chapter
Elabox is embarking into uncharted waters with its dynamic vision. Based on a hardware supply chain issue globally, Elabox has pivoted into the software side. Based on this transition, the goal is to build a decentralized app store for the Elastos ecosystem and beyond called ElaboxOS. The project’s primary goal is to be the go-to decentralized app store for all Web3.
ElaboxOS was inspired by a couple of people that introduced the concept of a decentralized app store. Umbrel is a website that allows people to run personal servers in the comfort of their homes. The service helps users create a Bitcoin node, a Nextcloud account, and more. Umbrel allows people to host their own Cloud without giving 3rd party services their own data. The hot new thing in crypto land is using the Nostr app, which can be downloaded on the Umbrel OS. People can create posts, like Twitter, and send each other Bitcoin donations for posts or accounts they appreciate.
Another project Elabox encountered is Dappnode. Dappnode’s goal is to promote the decentralization of the internet and create a society predicated on freedom, privacy, and censorship resistance. To accomplish this, they provide an accessible decentralized infrastructure through their software. The success of this mission relies on individuals running their nodes, making them the ones with the power.
The Elabox team has made significant progress over the past year, including the launch of ElaboxOS and the alpha version of its dApp Store, which supports dApps such as Elacity, Glide, Pasar, and Feeds Node.
Elabox aims to revolutionize the decentralization of the internet by providing a platform powered by the latest technologies such as Elastos DID, Hive, Carrier, and others to create a seamless and interoperable decentralized infrastructure. Elabox’s goal is to journey to a world where individuals have complete self-sovereignty, freedom, privacy, and the power to control their online presence through the innovative platform Elabox Lite.
The Next Revolution dApp Store
The overarching theme of the ElaboxOS is to be a decentralized hub for all of crypto and Web3 to not only control your digital assets and data but the ability to monetize it. While Umbrel gives people the option to have control of their data on their personal node service, there is no mechanism for monetization. Having a private server in the comfort of your home is an excellent service; however, accessing the server outside the house is limited to two underwhelming options. Users have to link up to a centralized service called Tailscale to link up to their server, defeating the purpose of hosting their decentralized server. The other option is hooking up to a TOR server which takes a long time to connect and goes through the sketchy dark Web.
ElaboxOS brings the Elastos tech stack to the table and gives people the options that Umbrel and Nostr don’t provide. The Elastos Carrier is a decentralized P2P network provider that offers encrypted end-to-end messaging from one person to another. As opposed to using a centralized option or a dark net decentralized option, as with Umbrel, with an app downloaded from ElaboxOS, people can build their server while having the ability to access it outside the home via the Carrier technology.
Once someone builds their website, as previously published, there are many tools at the user’s disposal to manage, store, and monetize their data and digital assets. ElaboxOS will have backend apps built into the platform that people can utilize daily. Hive will be a place where users can store their data, assets, music, movies, or digital items. Each user will have access to creating their own W3C-compliant DID to verify their identities to the rest of the world and have something to use to navigate the rest of the internet. Carrier will be running in the background, controlling and managing all the traffic so people can securely and privately communicate with one another in a p2p fashion.
In traditional Web2, all these services are centralized or run by third-party institutions. Being connected to the ElaboxOS central hub, you enter the world of an authentic Web3 and peer-to-peer marketplace. Remember the last time you rented a movie from Google Play? How about the time you bought some music from the Apply Play store? All the rights to play these movies or music albums are only granted by some big players that own the Digital Rights Management (DRM) permissions to that content. These companies or institutions could drop one of those movies or music labels instantly and not be playable on their platform.
When you enter the ElaboxOS and purchase music or movies, you will always be able to play the multimedia content until you sell it to someone else. For example, peer-to-peer DRM will be embedded in apps accessed by ElaboxOS, which will assure people the genuine ownership rights of their assets.
The Decentralized App Store is where app publishers hold and own their data, powered by DID and Hive technology. The Decentralized Store has three main components: the Store App for users to view and subscribe to stores, the Store Hub Server for store validation and promotion, and the Publisher App for app publishing and store registration. This decentralized approach to app stores offers greater security, control, and privacy for app publishers and users than the centralized model currently in use.
An ElaboxOS owner can share access to the platform with friends and family members. The authentication process uses DID to verify the users who want to share or access the Elabox. This feature allows less technical individuals to join the platform without running their own devices. In addition, multiple users can access Elabox apps and device features simultaneously and remotely access data stored locally, privately, and securely.
Additionally, users can connect their Hive account to a user account and share with third-party apps requiring storage access. However, access to storage requires authentication from the owner, which allows users to own their data and keep it safe from corruption. This feature enables users to work on other ElaboxOS-powered devices by connecting to their Hive account. In conclusion, sharing access to an ElaboxOS with numerous people provides a secure and convenient way for individuals to join the platform and access its features.
The Journey Continues
While lack of funding and supply chain logistics have slowed the Elabox project down, there’s still much effort and enthusiasm behind the scenes to make the ElaboxOS dApp store a reality. The Web3 and crypto community need a central hub for all dApps to be easily downloaded and assessed for each respective blockchain. As currently constructed, users need to use different wallets, blockchains, and passwords to access their favorite dApp.
With the ElaboxOS dApp store, users can take advantage of using their own unique DID to access any of their dApps through one sleek and UI-friendly interface. Gone will be the days of having to use Metamask for Ethereum dApps, Phantom wallet for Solana dApps, etc. Through the ElaboxOS dApp store, users can download the dApp immediately without going through a wallet, launching a dApp, and then getting to trading or interacting.
Based on the proprietary Elastos tech stack, users can take advantage of being in control of their digital destiny through the use of DID, Carrier, and Hive. As our latest article about DID explained, logging in with their ID is a much easier and safer way than using a blockchain address. Utilizing the Carrier and its ability to manage peer-to-peer communications is far from how the current centralized Web works today. Users can control, move, and import data, and storage through Hive is another way to access all your information within these respective dApps via ElaboxOS.
ElaboxOS dApp store could be the central hub of Web3 and crypto. Elastos has the tools and technology to have users be in control of their communication, data, and identity. While there have been some roadblocks for Elabox since they started a couple of years ago, there’s lots of light at the end of the tunnel in achieving the momentous goal of being the vessel to increase the adoption to not only the Elastos ecosystem but all of crypto and Web3.
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