1 of 14 “Forever is composed of Nows.” –Emily Dickinson

This week Elastos announced that 100k Carrier nodes on our P2P network were sold in the form of TV Boxes…in the last three weeks of August alone.

We want to change the internet forever and now is the time to do it.

Elastos continued its forward momentum this week. Let’s recap.

Technical Dynamics

1. The first phase of development and acceptance of the Trinity project;

2. Carrier native SDK supports continuous build based on Travis CI;

3. The interface of the Carrier has been improved;

4. Carrier Bootstrap repository update to CMake compilation system;

5. Import Trello as a project collaboration tool;

6. Complete the test network and the main network access to the btc.com mining pool to verify the merge mining;

7. Complete the prototype verification of the main chain Pow+Dpos;

8. SPV light wallet bug fix;

9. Continue NEO smart contract migration;

10. Super node election process discussion

The Elastos and Bitmain joint mining pool difficulty adjustments have almost concluded. After 7 days of difficulty adjustments and a total of 23 adjustment cycles, the average Elastos blockchain time has returned to approximately 2 minutes. ELA mining difficulty increased by approximately 835.8 billion times, signifying that adaptation work being performed on Elastos and Bitmain’s join mining has been officially completed. The increase in mining difficulty shows that the safety and credit of Bitcoin will be transmitted to ELA, further increasing the safety and reliability of ELA.

The Elastos testnet is officially open for public use. If you are a developer, you can now view our repositories on GitHub. More information can be found here: http://elanews.net/2018/07/26/elastos-developer-news-testnet-launch/

Useful links:

A Developer Beginner’s Guide

Developer Portal in Cyber Republic

Developer Documentation on Github

Elastos Smartweb Alpha

Elastos Community

Elastos Community Global

Community News

To prevent serving on both the Elastos Foundation Council and the Interim Cyber Republic Council, Yipeng Su has stepped down as the Elastos Foundation Director to focus on his new role on the Interim Cyber Republic Council. At the recommendation of the Elastos Foundation Council, Ben Lee will become the new Council Director, as well as COO of the Elastos Foundation.

The Elastos TV Box sold over 100k Carrier nodes in August through our partner Shanghai Shijiu TV. “If everything goes well, we are hoping to take half of the Chinese TV box market.” – Yuxin Zhang, Senior Manager of IoT and Smart Devices at Elastos

The Elastos Infographic Contest produced many fantastic visuals that express our technology and infrastructure in easy to understand formats. Thank you to everyone who submitted for continuing to help us prove that a community driven approach can produce top quality content. Winners and their submissions can be found here: https://elanews.net/2018/08/30/elastos-infographic-contest-winners/

September 1

Elastos Co-Founder, Feng Han, appeared on Xue Ba Shi San Mei during the 4th episode of the Elastos series livestream to chat about his story with Elastos. He discussed his initial knowledge of Elastos from meeting Rong Chen, to his entrance into the foundation, and eventually his evangelism of blockchain. Feng Han brought up Elastos virtual machines, which can form closed data systems used for data security protection and which can turn data into personal property through blockchain verification and attribution.

Feng explained that being able to own data is a lot like it was in 1998, when China began to issue real estate deeds. In reality, this was the beginning of the the people’s wealth movement in China. Now, real estate constitutes the majority of wealth in Chinese households and is the reason why Chinese real estate is itself a capital market. The value of real estate is not in its material or in its use rights, but rather based in its attribution. Each person has a real estate deed, allowing for legally recognized transactions and only under this premise is real estate able to form a capital market capable of realizing the future. Using the same reasoning, once data begins to have attribution, the data can be realized, and can also become a monetary instrument on the capital market. Thus, blockchain is certain to bring new opportunities in wealth.

The Elastos community held a Developers meetup in Shenzhen with Kevin Zhang and Clarence Lui, the event attracted many developers and blockchain enthusiasts.

September 3

Elastos Assistant Chief Engineer, Rebecca Zhu, had an interview with iquant where she spoke in great detail about Elastos. Some of the highlights of her talk were:

“There are two important dates that involve major events that I want to discuss. The first is that a layer of DPOS consensus will be added on top of Elastos’ main blockchain merged mining consensus. This will involve an election for Elastos super nodes, which is rather close to EOS. Currently, we are in the process of developing a technological protocol and around January 2019, we will initiate the election process for super nodes, at which time the details will be released, so we hope everyone will take note when the time comes.”

“At the same time, the first election for the Cyber Republic Collective Governance Committee will proceed in June 2019 and on August 1st, we will announce the results of the election, giving birth to the first Collective Governance Committee. There are currently a number of members familiar with our community who have shown an extremely high interest in participating in next year’s Collective Governance Committee election. This is something that makes me very happy, so I hope that everyone will participate and take note.”

“Also at the same time, the Cyber Republic Collective Governance Committee and Secretaries are currently seeking professionals in the areas of financial auditing, investment management, website maintenance, community activities, and activity organization. So if anyone of you are interested in participating in this community self-government and want to contribute your professional skills and experience, please contact me.”

Events and Meetups

Washington DC

Link: https://www.meetup.com/Elastos-Blockchain-Project-Washington-Meetup/events/253753736/

Boston

Elastos is a Platinum Sponsor and will be hosting a booth at the TokenFest in Boston. For tickets and more event information: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/token-fest-boston-2018-tickets-45732485094

Atlanta

Link: https://www.meetup.com/Elastos-Atlanta/events/253792472/

Melbourne

Link: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-smartweb-future-tickets-48290936491

Manila

Community Art Assets

Elastos and Cyber Republic wallpaper designs are now available for desktop and mobile: https://bit.ly/2CwJe8g

Elastos Interview Series

This week we find out more about the member of our Elastos team who truly believes in the power of the pen. Many merely know him through his thoughts and conclusions that fuse Elastos with creativity, art and philosophy. But there is much more to know. Let’s Meet Zach Warsavage.

Let’s begin with your past, tell us all about it?

ZW: I grew up right outside of Philadelphia. As a child I was mostly into playing sports, ice hockey, baseball, and eventually became obsessed with cinema. My obsession led me to get a degree in creative writing in New York City and pursue a career in the film industry. I spent about 8 years after college working on films all over the country and some even outside of it like Italy. I started as the person who manages the process that all actors go through from the time they get to basecamp (where trailers are) until they leave at the end of their day. I got to work directly with some of the greatest actors in Hollywood and manage large groups of interesting people everyday. I was a sort of specialist with actors and most of the job offers I got were to do work in this capacity. I eventually became an assistant director. However, the film industry is very hard, very long hours, mainly 16 hour days everyday rain, shine, or snow, and it takes a toll. I knew I wanted to follow my true passion. I left about two years ago to write a book and to devote myself to writing full-time.

Tell us more about the book you are writing?

ZW: I am not sure how much I want to say. I began writing it after a serious shift that took place in my life. It started as a novel yet it evolved into something outside of any genre. It is a mixture of poetry, philosophy, spirituality, and some personal exploration. I would classify it as a modern book and the first real honest work I have ever created. It can take years and years before one ever writes a single honest sentence. Trust me, this is true. There is a lot that needs to come up, to vomit out, and a lot of life to live sometimes, good and bad. To actually find your voice, in any medium, is a process. But once you do, there is no going back. The book was almost complete when I started at Elastos. I plan on finishing it soon. If anyone in our community works in publishing, feel free to reach out to me.

Coming from a totally different background, how did you get involved with blockchain?

My father told me about it actually. He became interested in bitcoin and asked me to do some research. Within a few weeks I was quite obsessed with this technology. It was the first time a technology had interested me so much. Decentralization, trust…what were these majestic concepts?

When did you first hear about Elastos and what sparked this fire in you?

I remember it quite clearly. What you have to understand is as an artist, for most of my life, only other artists have inspired me. People like Henry Miller, Arthur Rimbaud, Bob Dylan, Emily Dickinson, Frida Kahlo, Tchaikovsky, Miles Davis…the list goes on and on. I spent most of my twenties staying in and reading. I would stay up all night quite often, thinking, imagining, coming up with ideas, writing scripts, and allowing inspiration to be my guide. This cannot be forced. It happens when it is earned.

This past February I heard about Elastos. I think I heard some lunatic raving about it online, I’m kidding. So I went to do some research and I came across a video of Rong Chen speaking. I will be honest, I knew something was happening, but I did not know what. Granted, the first time I read Nietzsche I had no idea what he was talking about either. And sure enough, that night, there I was, staying up all night, again. But this time…it was about a different kind of artist. A different kind of art.

This was very new for me. I found bitcoin to be fascinating, and had liked many other projects I had come across. But this was a bit transcendent. A sort of reflection of the interconnectedness of the universe. Someone was trying to make actual sense out of the chaos of the internet. My mind was working extremely fast and my excitement was genuine. It was not just the technology, it was the unselfish, almost bizarre and humane philosophy that Rong had. He was genuine, and in a world corrupt and driven by so many forces that do not care about other people, his vision seemed to be nothing less than devoting his life to making the world better for everyone. I was impressed by the artistic and holistic attitude, to say the least.

This world desperately needs good human beings, and here was one, no frills, just a humble man with honesty and passion for his work.

I recognized him as an artist right away.

How or what made you start contributing to Elastos and what is your current role at Elastos?

I knew many projects needed help, especially ones that are not based in English speaking countries. I contacted Fay and made some proposals. After about a month she told me I could try writing a weekly report. The essays were my idea. I knew this industry needed to find its own intersection with the humanities and the arts and that we desperately needed some sophistication and perspective on what is happening. I wanted to contextualize this grand technology with the grandness of other ideas I understood. I wanted to do something unique.

My role has evolved quite a bit. My earlier essays would take days. Sometimes most of the week. There simply is not as much time for that now. The essays deserve time and inspiration and I plan on doing them as each week allows. It is about quality not quantity.

My current role is as a member of our core team in the west. I write most of our content, am a communication lead between our teams, as well as a communication lead with our agencies that we work with. I also write copy for various things like the scripts for our videos, we have several coming out, and a few that are now finished like the one on the CR website. I must say KP helps a lot with the technical parts. I also am going to do some public speaking for Elastos.

What is the most exciting part of your work?

The writing. However, as I said, the days of getting lost in essays for 10 hours a day has become a little less realistic. It is also the people. Humans from different cultures and countries working together remotely and building something new by using the very thing they are trying to improve…it is a bit surreal sometimes. I believe in modernity. This whole thing, if nothing else, is very modern.

Also, just being able to contribute honestly. I am a writer and that is how I can help and how I have been asked to help. There are countless other areas of expertise that people can use and join this project. You can contribute in the way that you are best able to, from wherever you are in the world. This is an exciting idea.

Live anywhere, be yourself, change the internet.

Can you share some interesting plans that you are currently busy with or will be in the near future?

I recently met a very fascinating person in our community who lives in Spain and I never would have met him without Elastos. We are writing a long form document on the internet that is even more in depth than any of the essays. We want to really expand people’s minds about what the internet can be, or should I say what it already is. This project is happening through Cyber Republic and will take some time. But it particularly excites me.

You will be a speaker at the Token Fest 2018 in Boston, for the first time representing Elastos in front of an audience in the thousands, what will you be speaking about and will you be doing more of these appearances?

I will be speaking about our modern internet in 5 minutes, which as you know is concise when speaking about Elastos. I will also be doing a few other speaking engagements coming up.

Where do you think Elastos could bring improvement?

We need to continue to deliver what we are doing clearly. There are a lot of projects and all of these projects are lumped together under the term “crypto.” The public does not understand. Elastos needs to continue communicating and marketing the fact that we are upgrading the internet. If data hacks and data ownership are daily news in this world, then what we are doing is too. Even more so.

We need to really expand our community and add new voices who can communicate clearly and bring their own talents. I think Cyber Republic is where improvements can come from and where they will need to come from because this is how we have set up our future. We need action.

Just like other decentralized movements, the power comes from the amount of people that get involved and the quality of their contribution. We just started, we have a long way to go. But the internet isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it is waiting for us to fix it.

Working on a number of films and reading a countless number of books, what would you rate as your favourite movie and book of all time? And why?

It is often the films that we see as children that have the greatest impact on us. I have seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder over 100 times. I used to play hooky from school just to stay home and watch it. If you love this film, it needs no explanation as to its greatness. I love the dark and the strange and the magical, and it has all of them.

I am also a big fan of Winona Ryder and I also love Clint Eastwood westerns, like The Outlaw Josey Wales. Much of my time learning about films came from classic art cinema. Directors like Robert Bresson, Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Jean Cocteau, and David Lynch.

The books that changed my life were mostly spiritual books. I will not name them here, but there were several. My favorite book would probably be Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, 1855 Edition. I read it after a particularly tough time in my life while living on a mountain in Maine in the fall. I would read it out loud and walk, alone. It was distinctly American and distinctly the greatest work of written art in American history. I felt alive and it holds a special place for me.

But I like most of the poets.

They are the freest.

What do you enjoy doing in your time off?

Seeing art. I love modern television. It is surpassing film. But also watching sports. I am a die hard Philadelphia sports fan.