Graphic Art by Kenneth K.



Intro

Welcome to a brand spankin’ new edition of the CR Weekly Newsletter. It’s been a week of fruitful developments for the Cyber Republic and Elastos ecosystem.



Elastos came out with a new website that has been a hit with community members. New supernodes are featured in our follow-up piece. Rong Chen recently spoke at the annual Token 2049 conference and last but not least, Hyper Connect’s proposal has officially been the 2nd funded project through the new CR Consensus model.

Before we move on to the news, we’re proud to say that with the expansion of our team, CR Social Media presence has been growing at a rapid pace. Each Weekly CR Newsletter has more than a dozen people working on it, and because we’re always seeking a higher level of content, we’ve a sparkly new e-mail address: press@cyberrepublic.org. Leads, progress, submissions, questions and comments can all go to this address. We also have a new medium page. Follow it for a regular release of articles: https://medium.com/@CyberRepublic.



Recently, the Elastos Foundation came out with a new website. Its clean and organized layout is easy to navigate. You’ll find a newly created Team Page, something the community has been asking about, and the “2018 End of Year Report” is prominently displayed along with a devoted section for developers, how anyone can get funded on the CR, and a link to the Elastos Wallet.



There are clickable graphics on the Elastos Blockchain, Elastos ETH Sidechains, and Elastos Runtime and Carrier. Below these are Industries the Elastos technology has use cases for as well as links to the Elastos Ecosystem’s tools and the Cyber Republic itself.



Last week we went over several Supernode candidates for the upcoming DPoS Elections:

https://medium.com/@CyberRepublic/supernodes-1a92e3b224be

We always have more submissions coming in so we’ll be sharing them as well. From West to East, the community is seeking help secure Elastos’ DPoS Consensus mechanism. There are funded projects such as DMA and Hyper Connect that are looking to run Supernodes. The various admins also have mentioned running a supernode.



Our goal is to create an educational resource for community members to be informed and vote with conviction.



Elastos Founder Rong Chen spoke at the Token 2049 Event. He was on a panel with other projects such as Icon, Ontology, Aion and Wanchain. Rong spoke about the high-end Elastos technology, specifically about the sidechain structure, runtime that’s made up of Virtual Machines, and the Cyber Republic ecosystem. It’s always great to have the leader of the Elastos Foundation attend high-profile events and representing the ecosystem.



Lastly, Hyper Connect became the 2nd project funded through the CR Consensus. This is an open source IoT framework that utilizes the Elastos Blockchain and Carrier, amongst other ELA services. Their goal is to provide a modular and feature-rich platform that can be used in any IoT industry as well as for personal use. This is another big step in the Cyber Republic ecosystem. Hyper Connect gathered the second-most votes behind the React Native project. Look out for a roadmap from the team; we are all looking forward to seeing the CR-funded product built from the ground up. Congratulations to Peter Strauss and the Hyper Connect team!

-By Jeremy G.

Summary





Here is the latest Elastos Weekly Update:

We have a new Cyber Republic Documentation site with relevant introductory information about the Cyber Republic, including the constitution, voting and proposals, and leadership. Check it out here:

https://www.cyberrepublic.org/docs/#/overview/intro

If you have any content you’d like to submit to our writing (or social media) team, please email us at our new contact email:

press@cyberrepublic.org

Analytics

CR Website:

CR Forum:















Project Updates

Cyber Republic Website

Main Project Repo: https://github.com/cyber-republic/CyberRepublic

Git Activity and Updates

Please refer to the timeline described on this article for more info: https://blog.cyberrepublic.org/2018/12/27/important-cyber-republic-announcement



If you are a developer interested in working with the CR or Elastos, here’s a form you can fill out: https://goo.gl/forms/pvzDYMsVEs10s6U72

SUPERNODES

By Jeremy G

Hyper Supernode *New*



The creators of Hyper.IM and Hyper Connect will be running their own supernode. It will be hosted on AWS cloud servers in Germany. As far as divvying up rewards, the Hyper team looks to align with the average of other nodes and also, “As CR tasks have been paused, we plan to bring them back by sharing rewards with contributors and keeping voters updated about achievements by community members. By sharing rewards with voters as well as to contributors to the Elastos ecosystem, we hope to grow with the community. The rest will be invested toward marketing Hyper Messenger.” They will market their supernode through a dedicated website and their various social media outlets.



Peter Strauss of Hyper has also decided to help create a script for all Supernodes in order to automate the distribution of rewards to voters and team members. Read more about his work here:

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/voter-reward-payout-script-for-dpos-nodes/753/

Elastos Scandinavia *New*



This group is from the Scandinavian region. A group member has provided a mission statement:



“We are looking to provide Elastos with increased stability, diversity, and speed by operating the supernode with highly skilled people, physically located in a country with stable infrastructure with our own servers in Sweden. We have an experienced sysadmin hopefully joining our team shortly. Elastos Scandinavia plans to hold our cost as low as possible without any loss of quality. In this way we can stay solvent longer, keeping the SN alive and giving back higher rewards to the community. First, the reward will go to paying for the cost of running the SN. Next, to prove our quality, we plan to give most–if not all of our rewards–to the community in the beginning. In this way, we are giving away our labor until the Elastos community has built up trust and belief in Elastos Scandinavia as a quality SN.”



The team is mainly composed of developers and a member with a background in Electronics, Embedded Systems, and Measurement/Controlling Systems. They will create their own website, twitter account, and Telegram channel to market the Supernode.

Elephant Wallet and Telegram Admin Supernodes *New*



The makers of the popular Elephant wallet and the admins of Elastos Telegram will jointly be hosting two nodes. Both of these groups of people have been crucial in developing tools for a robust Cyber Republic community. Please tune-in to the following Weekly Updates to get more information on these Supernodes.

Enter Elastos



Enter Elastos is a supernode group created by dedicated members of the Cyber Republic like Michael S., Chris Mac, Chinicci, Dexter, KenNinja, and Jeremy G who are well-known throughout the community. What started as five members quickly grew into twelve because, “With a few more heads put together, we found that we could build something really great.”



Their mission is to run three Supernodes (SN) with a very fair reward and highly competitive distribution that’s primary purpose is to contribute to the ecosystem in a sustainable way. The three SN’s will be named Callisto, Ganymede, and Titan, after the biggest moons in the Solar System, and each node would be run in a different continent as the team is composed of members from several countries: U.S.A., Morocco, New Zealand, England, Germany, and Belgium. This will ensure diverse distribution of the Supernodes. In terms of developing a script to streamline the payouts, there are experienced coders and programmers in the pool that will take care of this code and ensure that it’s 100% conducted through smart contracts and scripts. They are also considering using the open-sourced script by Strauss after its development. Also, prominent CR member Michael S. has a personal Supernode he’s hoping to run from his hometown in Houston, Texas, and he looks forward to contributing to the DPoS Consensus.

DPoS Node Rights Alliance



This ambitious Supernode pool has been covered extensively in previous issues of the CR Weekly Newsletter.

Their Alliance communicates and plans their strategies in the Wechat group called “League_of_Elastos”. They are recruiting 36 node candidates and others as voters. If any of the candidates are elected as active nodes, the profit shared among each member will be significantly increase. There are two types of members in this Alliance: Node Committee Members (NCMs) and Voting Members (VMs). There are 36 NCMs that will lock up 5,000 to participate in the Elections. VMs place their votes toward the 36 NCMs. If any NCM is elected, the profit minus the running costs is distributed to members at a weight of 2 for NCMs and 1 for VMs. This Alliance is a not for profit organization with the philosophy to benefit token holders directly and prevent the collusion of whales. Their ultimate goal is to distribute as much profit as possible to voters. The Alliance looks to be one of the leading Supernodes in the East as a part of the entire Elastos DPoS Supernode ecosystem.

Elastos Italy



A team of 10 Elastos enthusiasts are looking to run a Supernode based out of Italy. The Supernode will be run by one of the team member’s in-house servers. Team member Damiano explains how the team plans to divvying up rewards to voters: “Our pool has 10 participants, all with different quotas. Therefore, every decision will be divided according to the percentage of entry. Our strategy will vary a lot. The focal point will always be to reward voters in the most appropriate way possible.”



The team plans on utilizing an open source solution that the whole community can use when it becomes available. Damiano is very active on social media as he manages several groups with around 20k members; he is the admin of Elastos Italia. With his active channels and social outreach, the team feels very confident that they will promote their supernode effectively. This group prioritizes transparency and communication with the community and looks to act in the best interests of the Cyber Republic ecosystem.

The Wild Strawberries Node

This is a diversified group of 15 members who are looking to run three nodes in the U.S.A. Their other members are from France, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.



The team states, “We intend to set up cloud servers. Our incentives will be at start 60% for voters and will follow an inflationary model like Elastos. After some growth, we will cut our dpos share to creating a CR Task Fund.”



The team will be creating a website along with various social media outlets to spread the word about their pool. This is their mission statement:



“The “Wild Strawberries” Nodes have the objective to develop and connect the Elastos Ecosystem through various means. Like wild strawberries, we intend to grow and develop everywhere, technical or social, because we consider the two elements necessary for a working elastic & evolving network. We would like to share our vision of the future for The Cyber Republic. Our vision is wild, like us. Our vision is the Cyber Republic to receive the fruit of our labor: the wild strawberries, the most tasty fruit for the largest borderless community. We are ready to make speeches, educate, participate, code, build ideas, help existing businesses and make new ones; we will give everyone a taste of success with our core values.”



Their values in 5 words: Empathy (genuine human interaction), Grit (results come from mistakes) , Patience (because fast and good don’t coexist in perfection), Wild Actions (actions are better than words), and Fun (life is a game).





TI’s ELA News Supernode



The community’s very own Telegram administrator “T.I.” will be running his own Supernode. It will be run on a cloud service system like AWS. T.I. is the sole contributor to the ELA News website and is very passionate about dedicating his time to the community.



T.I. says this about rewards: “ELA News has been run and maintained solely by myself without any funding. I wish to expand ELA News with more content through funding from the supernode rewards as I do not have so much time on my hands. However, I hope to distribute rewards according to market expenses, or perhaps slightly under that to cover running the node and expanding ELA News at the same time. ELA News has a dedicated readership, and I hope readers will support my vision”.



T.I will be looking for an open source script that all community members can use for distributing rewards to voters. He will have a dedicated page on ELA News for DPoS, and his Supernode will be marketed through the ELA News Twitter account.



T.I. has these final words, “I hope for ELA News to be the best resource for the community to be kept abreast of everything Elastos. Make sure to follow us on our Twitter page : twitter.com/elanewsnet and continue reading elanews.net. Sincerely, T.I.”

DMA’s Supernode



Another prominent community member looking to run a Participant Supernode is Brian from the DMA project. He shares his thought process in hosting a node and what their prerogative will be for the community: “As the Supernode election is nearing, myself and the team were thinking about whether or not we needed to participate, and how we would go about doing this. This is clearly a very important step for the Elastos infrastructure and community, so we decided to have an internal discussion of the qualifications needed to run an elected Supernode.



“We feel it is very important to have the technical background or have very strong tech support. It looks like the hardware requirement isn’t too complicated, but the quality of service is very important to keep the node up and running at a good level. My team members feel they are more than capable of doing it because they are working on our cloud services anyway, and are able to quickly monitor and fix problems in a timely manner. This convinced me that maybe we could, in fact, run one with confidence.



“We don’t want to just run the elected node and profit by ourselves. It must be shareable. So the plan is simple and direct: Share the earnings with all contributors on a regular basis. To make the sharing completely fair, we can write the script to put the incentive plan in the code, and have people put their trust in the code, not the human.



“We also need to create some tools to let each contributor view the data easily. The incentive model can be designed based on multiple factors. Since we are the team that built DMA, we have a very strong technical background to build such a script and run it in a fair way. Otherwise, we will not only lose the node, but also lose the reputation of one of the important ecosystem contributors.



“Last but not least, the node service should be expandable. We can put more add-value services on to the servers behind the node. For example, there might be a personal cloud disk service, DMA-powered extended business-stub service, etc. It can be continuously working along the basic node service the team can offer. All these services can be hosted by any elected node if they want. The earnings can be combined with the basic node service income. Thus, the earning of running such value-added services will be the additional share to the node supporters and contributors.



“Of course, the profit share program will be placed in the code. This is the way to bring in more services around the node and let the ecosystem application grow, letting every supporter benefit from such economic growth. I’d like share these thoughts with community. I believe this can also be points for other participants to consider.”



The team is reaching out to the community through all the proper social media outlets along with potentially creating a website for his group’s candidacy. If interested, they invite community members to join their node. You can reach the team at supernode@elastosdma.org.

DMA Progress Report Highlight

By Jeremy G

One of the most active CR projects, DMA, has just come out with their most recent team update. For those who don’t know anything about the project, DMA is built on the Elastos framework and focuses on the decentralized digital marketplace; it is a business commerce domain. There are multiple layers to the project with a lot of different use-cases. We’ve covered DMA in previous editions.



DMA has provided updates on their Early Access Program, Phase II Plan, Uptick e-ticketing dApp, Translation tools, and their Metro dApp.



Just under a month ago, DMA came out with their Early Access Program (EAP)



https://medium.com/@elastosdma/early-access-program-7699b03c0a67

They are picking three to five community-driven projects and they will provide these projects technical support. The EAP hopes to get DMA business development in local regions, but the submissions should focus on current tokenized asset management areas such as: event tickets, vouchers, gift cards, and various other digital rights.



The submissions can be related to any opportunities related to copyrighted digital content, data driven advertising, and targeted marketing, which is the focus of DMA 2.0. Typical use-cases for DMA 2.0 will be music, video, artwork, video games, data asset management, etc.



DMA has received 20 inquires, mostly from the Chinese community. Most participants have shown interest in Community Operation and dApp development. DMA will support some of those inquiries, as stated by the team: “…we have decided to provide limited support to several dApp projects. They will cover event tickets, gift cards, vouchers, etc. The final dApp list will be posted by the end of the month. The first round of dApp partners includes ‘Uptick’ team, and several Elastos eco-system teams.” DMA is very pleased by its interest in the Chinese and Asian markets along with the progression of the English community is expanding at a good rate.



DMA has outlined their roadmap for Phase II of DMA, which covers February through July 2019. The team says that, “The goal is to deliver a stable DMA platform and support several useful dApps before Elastos’ second anniversary in August, 2019.” The following are highlights of what Phase II of the DMA framework will be:



Build iOS SDK

Enhance payment module

Build DMA economy model

Integrate with Carrier and build message service module

Integrate with ETH sidechain and Hive

Release stable DMA 1.0 SDKs (Android and iOS)

Build personal data management modules and release DMA 1.5 Beta

Community and tech support

Community development

Business development

DMA’s most current dApp is called Uptick. It’s an E-ticketing dApp that contains multiple modules for businesses to utilize in their respective jurisdictions. It was just released March 13th.



There have been updates to the platform as well that include usability enhancements, bug fixes, and refined language. The Uptick app now automatically updates to the newest version. They are working on making Uptick ready for commercial operation.



There are a few steps that need to be taken in order to make Uptick a commercialized product, as Brian from DMA explains, “There are a lot of functions still missing in this dApp if we take it to commercial operation level. For example, social sharing, referral program, fiat payment, etc. Uptick is derived from the original demo Elastos ticket dApp which is mainly for demonstrating the functionality of DMA framework. The commercial version is not part of the DMA platform project scope. In order to continue it to commercial operation level, Uptick team (currently inside StarryMedia) is funding this project by itself and also seeking other funding sources. The commercial version also requires iOS support.”



The team is confident they will get the proper support and funding in order to commercialize the Uptick platform. Uptick will increase earnings for businesses without the use of a 3rd party and will decrease the ticket prices for consumers, a win-win for both sides.



DMA has also come out with a web translation tool for the Uptick dApp. This will help adoption in multiple countries and cultures. It is a generic tool that also be available to any other dapps that need multiple language translation support. The team plans to continue to polish the tool, and they will share it with the community as soon as possible.



DMA would like to thank the following contributors for their hard work in translating in various languages:



English: Chris P

Dutch: Dexter, Murph

German: Godzilla, Gandhi

French: omoemm, Diego

Spanish: jmsaulnier

Italian: Fill Luca

Arabic: A G, Chinicci



Another intriguing dapp in the DMA suite is called Metro app. As stated in this DMA article:

https://medium.com/@elastosdma/ask-dma-series-1-51f03343f13b

“The Metro app provides mapping, searching, routing, news, social elements, games, coupons, and shopping services to the end users. It covers all cities that have metro lines in China. We have a wallet embedded into the Metro app which stores the ‘points’ that users earn through riding the metro and shopping within the app/surrounding merchants. It also rewards people for watching ads in the app/metro stations. The points are given in crypto format.”



Metro app already boasts more than 500,000 users and the team has come out with several updates. The team’s statement on Metro app is, “Metro app is moving forward as usual. We will start a spring campaign in April. The Metro team is evaluating the opportunity in several international cities, such as Singapore, Bangkok, Toyko, etc. It will grow in parallel with DMA project development.” We all look forward to the campaign in April.



Thanks to DMA for providing detailed updates on its framework along with its multiple dApps. The community is looking forward to seeing more progress for one of the most exciting projects in the Elastos ecosystem.

CR Forum Topic Highlights

By YY



We’ve summarized some of the popular topics of this week:

Prep Questions – Assistance Needed



Amos Thomas (widely known as “Famous Amos”) from Chill Zone has raised a topic concerning his upcoming scheduled talk with the CEO of Caring Health Center, one of the largest healthcare providers in his local region. As medicine is not his area of expertise, Amos is seeking help from the community in preparing for a few questions:

How can blockchain help the medical industry?

How can Elastos benefit health care providers?

What is the most impactful part of Elastos on medicine?

It is really amazing to see that there are numerous community members who are capable of contributing valuable responses with great insights to Amos’ questions. It has been clearly shown how vibrant and responsive our CR forum is! If you would like to contribute your ideas to this topic, please click the following link：

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/prep-questions-assistance-needed/800/8

Option Incentive Scheme for Elastos Brand Promotion



There is an interesting concept introduced by our community member William Zhang (known as “summer98” in the CR forum). William came up with an idea to encourage community members to contribute to Elastos community in the form of ELA option incentives. ELA option incentive refers to the incentivised activities in accordance with the agreed price within a specified period of time. After meeting certain performance conditions, an individual will obtain a certain amount of ELA by means of investment. Incentivised activities can be rated according to the scale of the activities and the number of options with different quotas should be given accordingly. Some of the proposed activities are listed below:

Brand promotion – online special events or office salon activities

Code development – option incentives are given according to quality, quantity and effect of the corresponding codes

Ecological docking – targeting DApp projects that have a high conversion rate of traditional business users into cognitive digital assets users

With regard to exercise rights, both parties may settle their accounts in stablecoins such as TUSD but still pay in ELA at the time of final payment. If you are interested in this topic, please click the link below:



https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/english-option-incentive-scheme-for-elastos-brand-promotion/814

“For the People, By the People” Excerpt from March 11 Weekly Update



For those who have not read our last week CR report, Amos Thomas has written an article expressing his belief that Elastos is not a vision of gains but is a vision that gains. Through his article you will learn more about the vision and structure of Elastos Foundation as well as Rong Chen’s views on the future of Elastos. If you are interested in this topic or have other comments to add on, please visit the following link:



https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/for-the-people-by-the-people-excerpt-from-march-11-weekly-update/822

“Supernodes” a Weekly Update Excerpt from March 11



This repost is of an article written by Jeremy Gordon relating to Supernode Candidates who was already featured in last week CR report. So far we have collated 6 profiles of Supernode Candidates and we expect the number of candidates to be profiled by us will grow prior to the upcoming DPoS election. We are actively seeking information on other Supernode Candidates and if you would like to share information about your Supernode Candidacy, please contact us via the following ways:



If you would like to find out more about Supernode Candidates and joining one of them, please read the entire article by visiting the following link:



Propose to add more options for shared links beside FB and Twitter



This is another topic created by William Zhang with the aim to alleviate the use of our CR forum by Chinese community members who prefer to share links via local social media channels such as Sina Weibo, Sina Blog, and WeChat. As you can see in our CR forum, there is an increasing number of topics that are created by Chinese community members. We hope community members from all countries feel welcome to engage. If you would like to show your support for William’s idea, please take a look at this topic:



https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/fb/820/3

Topics highlights

Check out these hot topics to see if there is anything that you can contribute to, or simply express your thoughts to help make the forum a truly vibrant community.

Top new topics

Prep Questions – Assistance Needed

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/prep-questions-assistance-needed/800/10

Option Incentive Scheme for Elastos Brand Promotion

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/english-option-incentive-scheme-for-elastos-brand-promotion/814

“For the People, By the People” Excerpt from March 11 Weekly Update

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/for-the-people-by-the-people-excerpt-from-march-11-weekly-update/822/2

“Supernodes” a Weekly Update Excerpt From March 11

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/supernodes-a-weekly-update-excerpt-from-march-11/817

Propose to add more options for shared links beside FB and Twitter

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/fb/820/3

Top active topics (in terms of number of views and replies)

Hyper.im – Peer-to-Peer Instant Messenger

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/hyper-im-peer-to-peer-instant-messenger/289

Marketing & awareness of Elastos & The Cyber Republic https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/marketing-awareness-of-elastos-the-cyber-republic/102/8

Bi-weekly livestream with Rong Chen

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/bi-weekly-livestream-with-rong-chen/107/7

Supernode Pool Recruitment and Q & A

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/supernode-pool-recruitment-and-q-a/648/25

Hyber.im – Beta now available

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/hyper-im-beta-now-available/348/15

dApp idea thread

https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/dapp-idea-thread/342/12

Voter Reward Payout Script for DPoS Nodes



https://forum.cyberrepublic.org/t/voter-reward-payout-script-for-dpos-nodes/753/13

Community Shout Out:



Chinicci always eager to share his excitement for Elastos.

CR Terminology: Elastos Runtime

By Kenneth K.

As there are many terms to such a large project like Elastos and the Cyber Republic, we’ve decided to build a growing glossary of terms that can help the less technical understand better what the tech means and the impact it could have. This week we’re focusing on Elastos Runtime, which was discussed in detail in the first edition of the Elastos Spotlight Series:

Term: Elastos Runtime



Elastos Runtime can be thought of as an App Engine or a Virtual Machine(VM). It is a sandboxed runtime environment that runs on top of an existing OS, such as Android, iOS, Windows, etc. Dapp developers do not need to worry too much about the technical details of the layer underneath (blockchain layer). They just need to call the RT.SDK.

Building dapps becomes much easier than before. Dapp developers use ionic to develop their HTML5 applications that will run on trinity browser. Non-Elastos apps can access the Elastos Smart Web via the RT SDK(C++ SDK) because android and iOS apps can call C++ SDK. In this way, Elastos’ versatility and ease of use presents a powerful appeal to existing mobile developers.



Elastos Runtime runs on the user’s device to achieve a “reliable runtime environment.” By developing Elastos dapp, independent developers can use digital assets such as digital audio and video playback. VM guarantees digital assets will run under blockchain control, providing users with the ability to consume and invest in digital content.

-https://github.com/elastos/Elastos/wiki/Elastos-Runtime

Layman’s definition:

A runtime system is the bridge between hardware and software in that it translates code into machine code. Elastos Runtime is the environment that code can run on–much like an encyclopedia or a library about a new world in which digital assets are run under the blockchain. Elastos Runtime, essentially, is what decides what to do with the instructions in a code.

International Community

By Joel

Chinese Community Activities Description Reference Link Not only TV box: Elastos Carrier http://touziela.com/m/view.php?aid=248 Elastos: empowering a safe and reliable environment for information consumption http://industry.caijing.com.cn/20190312/4569331.shtml Elastos DID escorts the world’s first blockchain TV product serious https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/CIYg7ACJ2fxInsiXvf-vtQ Elastos: a brave dream maker http://www.pingcj.com/jingpin/elastos/61483.html Elastos sidechain technology is the right direction for blockchain applications https://www.7234.cn/elastoss/88544

On March 15th, Kevin talked to the community regarding CR Preparatory Committee on Huobi Chat. Feng Zhang was on the Chinese Telegram chat sharing his views on community governance and ecosystem development on March 17th.



Brian, Lead of Elastos BizFramework (DMA) Team, has published a great article on China Metros discussing the value and applications of blockchain in urban rail transit. Passengers of metro services represent a huge customer base. Passenger-centric operations and business models will be the main developmental focus in the future. Blockchain ensures data is personally owned and the smart contract guarantees that profits can be managed automatically and distributed to the relevant parties in real-time. Brian and his team have, as a pilot test, released tokens to the Metro App users and have quickly acquired several loyal users. The users gain tokens when they travel by trains and they can use the tokens to purchase goods in shops and vending machines within the stations. The application of the digital tokens can also be extended to offering discounts in metro ticketing and shops outside the stations, as well as with precision advertising. To learn more about the details of the idea, read the Chinese article here: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/0tfE4bkFypTNBc8xELl7cQ.

Interview: Chris Mac

By Kenneth K



Would you mind introducing yourself and how you found Elastos?



Hi, I’m Chris and I am an Elastophile. I’ve worked in defence, security, operations and communications for over 20 years. I studied Psychology at University and now have a MBA and a Masters in International Relations & Strategy. I have an entrepreneurial mind and learned of Bitcoin in 2011. I loved Satoshi’s vision but was not technically skilled to set up mining, and I kick myself for not working harder to understand it. I learned of Elastos in 2017, was delighted to hear of Rong’s vision, and I invested in early 2018. If I knew how to be, I’d be a CypherPunk.



We’ve heard that you’re going to be part of a new suggestion for the Cyber Republic. Would you mind introducing that and what it hopes to accomplish? Who else is on the team, and what is your role?



I met with many from the core community in Thailand last summer and have kept in touch. There is such an eclectic and talented mix. Inspired by what Aryan (IoeX) and Brian (DMA) are doing, and having seen Elastos products and services mature, I have been itching to help Elastos grow. I have recently joined a small group from the Elastos community to build a European Business Development hub for Elastos. Our working title for this new venture is Elastos Orchard. We think this reflects the sustainable, nurturing environment that we wish to create, within which there will be other elements which we’ll describe soon. Europe is an amazing marketplace and we believe that Elastos needs representation here.



Our focus will be based on 4 pillars: educating potential developers, influencing policy makers, supporting start-ups and connecting investors to blossoming projects. So far, team members include: Jochem (Netherlands), Diego and Rachid (France), and Ghandi (Switzerland). We are recruiting a lady from Germany too. Rachid is the co-founder of AllianceBlock.io and we intend to form a strategic partnership to accelerate our own development. We look forward to answering questions and securing votes from the community so that we can take this idea onwards.



You’re clearly someone who believes very much in the Elastos vision. However, even with the significant price difference from your initial investment, you have a positive outlook. What in your life has equipped you for this, and how does that connect to how you see Elastos? Where are your doubts?



Like many, I didn’t want to see the bull market price rises of 2017 for what they actually were. I learned a lot. We all have our moments of doubt but I remain calm, pragmatic and determined because Rong & Feng’s idea is sound and the fundamentals continue to improve. Every week Elastos core-developers and Elastos affiliates deliver against the plan. There is so much going on, it’s hard to keep up – but exciting.



My philosophy is simple: If I don’t understand something, I learn; if I don’t like something, I try to change it; if I make a mistake, I admit it and move on. And I only invest in projects that I care enough about to help.



I have doubts and they relate to how Elastos manages the transition from the idea of a traditional, centralised company to a novel, distributed, community-driven organisation. This is hard work, especially when so many have invested to make quick money. However, I believe many more invested in Elastos because of the philosophy and we need to listen to them; this is a unique, long-term project that will change the world for the better. As it does this, all those who’ve contributed by investment or effort will be rewarded.



Concerning the Cyber Republic, what insights do you have to share with the community, and in the same way, what insight do you wish to share with the current interim council members?



Cyber Republic is a fantastic tool, but it needs adoption, too. We have to encourage people to come off Telegram and put their ideas into Cyber Republic forums. This is a behavioural change for all of us, so we need to think about how we incentivise it. Ideas include: a competition to bring people to CR and to complete their profiles; explainer videos as to how to use CR; the requirement to hold at least 1 x ELA to contribute (to increase the quality of posts); updates on social media channels to inform of new idea submissions and film stories of the most successful submissions. In addition, there should be options that allow people to find others, by geography, skill-sets or ideas.



Do you seek a greater role in the Cyber Republic? If so, what is that role and what would it offer the Cyber Republic and Elastos?



Yes, if I could find a full-time role in Elastos or the Cyber Republic I would jump at the chance. I’d like a role such as global marketing or operations manager to cohere all the efforts of the core-team and affiliate businesses within a strategic plan. Maybe that’s something I could do within Elastos Orchard. I’d also like to write Rong Chen’s biography.



Lastly, why do you sound so intelligent and thoughtful and interesting even when you ramble on within a video for 20 straight minutes…twice? Where can we learn to do that? Are you going to lead the speaking workshops for Cyber Republic ambassadors?



Ha, funny! Perhaps, after the Bill Bryson book, I should have called those YouTube videos ‘Notes from a small ELAnd’? I learned the importance of good communications in the British Army. This is true whether you are trying to get a new idea into the head of an old general or whether you are giving commands in combat. I have given lectures to different audiences around the world and know that speaking clearly, and telling stories with energy, are the best ways to achieve understanding. It’s only with understanding that you can achieve effective actions. I’d love to teach the ambassadors programme about running Elastos meet-ups and how to seek the change they wish to see.

Glossary:



Elastos Hive Cluster: a decentralized File Storage Service that based on IPFS cluster. For more information: https://blog.cyberrepublic.org/2019/02/19/weekly-report-february-18-2019/

Elastos React Native: a Javascript framework for developing dapps, similar to Trinity’s Ionic framework, but native to Android and iOS. For more information: https://blog.cyberrepublic.org/2019/02/05/weekly-report-february-4-2019/

Elastos Sidechain: a scaling solution that utilizes parallel blockchains to the main chain in order decrease transaction congestion on the main chain. For more information:

Elastos Private Net: a private developer environment for local app testing on the Elastos Blockchain and Sidechains.

Elastos Runtime: the environment that code can run on, like an encyclopedia or a library about a new world in which digital assets are run under the blockchain.



Feel free to leave a comment with your concerns, questions, and suggestions (or praises), for the Cyber Republic.

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