Images from KP Woods: “As we move closer to the Cyber Republic beta, check out what the Elastos infrastructure is and what the team is accomplishing. This is a massive project, but with enough support from the community, we can relay what Elastos stands for as we climb another step towards inevitable mass adoption.”

Intro

Welcome to the last CR update of the calendar year. The Weekly Updates will be taking a break next week for the holidays and pick back up January 2019.

This year has been an amazing one. The Cyber Republic was only announced several months ago, but already we’ve seen a wave of talent and engagement that has pushed us to develop our infrastructure even faster.

The Cyber Republic is still in an alpha stage, however. The good news is that despite common misconception, all funding allocated to the CR is still locked up. You can see the CR wallet for yourself here. Any contribution to the Cyber Republic has actually been paid by the Elastos Foundation, which is why there tends to be a long process for approval. This means that use of the 16.3 million ELA set aside for funding the CR has not actually begun; it will begin sometime in August 2019, after the CR community elects all our council members.

This current period of alpha and soon-coming beta presents an opportunity for community members to step up and take charge–to demonstrate their passion through active participation because, when things really get rolling, there will be plenty of important roles to fill and the ones on the ground will know their comrades.

The good news is that we are getting closer to launching CR beta. There will be a significant announcement regarding the CR’s future soon after Christmas. Many changes are coming to the website to improve task proposals and handling in particular. A CR forum will be launched; accounts on the CR will be automatically linked. Feedback submitted on the forum will be collected on a daily basis and submitted to the Elastos Foundation.

Be excited for these announcements and more.

On the topic of misconceptions, we want to clear up one more: CRC does not stand for “Cyber Republic Council”. In fact, CRC stands for “Cyber Republic Consensus”.

In the latest article on Elastos DPoS, there are a number of clarifications given on the proposed DPoS system. For example, 12 nodes out of 36 nodes are not included in the 72 hour votings as they are exclusively reserved for the CRC. The annual 35% increase in ELA is the total annual profit allocation for DPoS. 25% of the total profit allocation for DPoS will be distributed to the 36 elected nodes based on averages. 75% of the total profit allocation for DPoS will be distributed to the 108 nodes (elected nodes and candidate nodes), and profits will be distributed according to the ratio of votes obtained by each node.

Read up on all the details: Elastos DpoS Consensus and Election Mechanism

In the community, we’re seeing continued furthering of the ecosystem and marketing for Elastos. Two members of the Cyber Republic, in particular, stood out this week: Lex Pablo and Jimmy Lipham.

First premiering on Medium, Lex Pablo wrote an article breaking down holes in the current social media infrastructure. Facebook takes user data, stores it on their servers, and sells it to the highest bidder. With the wave of negative publicity for Facebook, this is hardly news–and yet we users still accept it? But without popular alternative, there is little other option for the masses.

Lex details two ambitious projects looking to take the data back into the users’ hands: Solid and Elastos. Solid, created by the founder of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, is a framework built to decentralize user data in what they call “Personal Online Data Stores”.

But the climax of the article is actually Elastos. Pablo highlights the three main pillars of the Elastos ecosystem- Carrier, Runtime and Blockchain– or also known as, “The Fortress, the road system, and the keepers.” This is what makes the Elastos ecosystem stand out: a highly sophisticated infrastructure that truly protects users and their data.

Thanks to Mr. Pablo for the amazing article.

As for Jimmy Lipham, a first time Reddit user created his first post questioning Jimmy’s involvement with the Cyber Republic/Elastos ecosystem. In true Jimmy fashion, he took the time to respond to the post with a detail of the recent trip he took to meet members of the Elastos foundation. Jimmy’s excitement jumps off the page and he’s as pumped as ever about the vision of Elastos and the Cyber Republic. It’s contagious. He’s currently working on two projects- Peerjet and Kodi. His talents and amassed experience in the peer-to-peer infrastructure field is much needed for the CR to grow into its full potential. Thank you for all the hard work, Jimmy!

It’s always exciting to see new community members step up. Remember, community is the center of adoption.

Join the Cyber Republic today at cyberrepublic.org and take a look at the community section. There are tasks, teams, and CRcles that are ready to roll, and if they aren’t

Highlight: AnyPeer

We want to discuss another Chinese DApp in progress. It’s called AnyPeer, and it shares a great deal in common with ela.chat, previously covered here. In highlighting AnyPeer this week, it brings about something incredibly powerful about its development on the Elastos carrier.

Both ela.chat and AnyPeer are seeking to be a user gateway to Elastos, and thus, the Cyber Republic. By creating a decentralized chat on the Elastos carrier with DIDs that can act as identities for any applications on the Elastos blockchain; the IDs become universal.

Chat applications ease people into using the Elastos carrier, and by integration of a wallet that can store digital assets, it introduces Elastos blockchain to users. Both these projects have somewhat different directions, and both will be open sourced. Where ela.chat seeks to integrate a DEX and become ubiquitous in use-cases, AnyPeer is looking at IPFS cloud storage, group chat, 3rd party integration, AI, and eventually smart contracts which would allow games in-app.

Neither AnyPeer nor ela.chat sees each other as a competitor because both AnyPeer and ela.chat, being built on Elastos, can be completely interoperable. With the right, “feedback mechanism”, you could theoretically chat in your same chats on whichever UI you prefer. In fact, chat on whatever device you prefer. Your friend’s phone. Your parent’s computer. Your school’s office desktop. Elastos Carrier creates conditions such that you and only you will be able to access your same chats and functions on either platform in a completely secure, encrypted way. Any device that can install the apps can be used, and you can separate your private data by creating new identities, should you choose.

It is exciting to imagine, and there is no doubt that the Cyber Republic will be the first to adopt these safe, encrypted, and interoperable platforms that will become the next Wechats of the modern internet that is Elastos.

Summary

The latest Elastos Weekly Update can be read here.

Reminder: take a look and share feedback on these two particularly important topics: Elastos DPoS Proposal and the CR constitution.

Analytics: Dec 15-21

Virtual Meetup

Past Meetup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRrjOH87-xE

Upcoming Meetup: TBD

Projects Update

Cyber Republic Website

Main Project Repo: https://github.com/elastos/Elastos.Community/tree/master/ElastosBountyProgram

Git Activity and Updates

Bug Fixes and smaller improvements

Elastos on React Native

Project Roadmap for Alpha Release: h ttps://github.com/orgs/cyber-republic/projects/1



Main Project Repo: https://github.com/cyber-republic/elastos-ReactNative-framework



Elastos Wallet Core Repo: https://github.com/cyber-republic/react-native-elastos-wallet-core



Elastos Wallet Core Demo Repo: https://github.com/cyber-republic/react-native-elastos-wallet-core-demo



Elastos Carrier Repo: https://github.com/cyber-republic/react-native-elastos-carrier



Elastos Carrier Demo Repo: https://github.com/cyber-republic/react-native-elastos-carrier-demo

Git Activity and Updates

Demo for Alpha is almost complete



Implemented a functional wallet creation using the cpp library on iOS



Implemented all native bridge APIs for wallet demo for alpha version



Finished refactoring frontend

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

Upcoming Meetups

Meetups are the bread and butter of the ecosystem’s growth. Be sure to attend if you’re in any of these areas:

Tasks

This week, “Tasks in Progress” are on hold until the new year as the Cyber Republic takes on its next evolution.



These are tasks still in progress. Take on a task or create your own. Earn some ELA with your contributions.

Teams

Team Highlight

It’s the year 2018 and video gaming is bigger than ever! Gamers want to develop their skills and get better at their craft, but they also want to review and critique games they love to play.

Enter JAMJAM- a Dapp that aims to become a leading third-party gaming communication platform.

In its current state, JAMJAM is an independent platform eyeing the Elastos ecosystem. Larry Luo, the lead developer, is speaking with representatives from the Elastos team regarding the mechanics of its overall chain and token structure.

But what is JAMJAM?

JAMJAM allows users to record their process of playing a game, provide a strategy that works, and upload it onto the JAMJAM platform.

Let’s say a gamer is playing Fort Nite and they discover a specific tactic that works great. They upload it to JAMJAM, and if people find value in the video, then the creator will be rewarded in JAMJAM tokens. Viewers also get rewarded with tokens for watching ads, so content creators and viewers both get rewarded. Ultimately the platforms’ goal is for users to discover and share information about games.

In terms of the tokenomics, the videos with the highest views will be targeted by advertisers – this drives the JAMJAM token’s value. Essentially, the platform is developing a fully functional decentralized advertising model.

Larry Luo is an experienced programmer who has spent three years at the mega-giant, Tencent. Larry’s interest in the blockchain space sparked the idea for creating a decentralized one-stop-shop video sharing platform that can reward content creators and better engage users compared to centralized platforms currently in the market. “Tap Tap” is the leading centralized video game content platform with 10s of millions of users in China – JAMJAM seeks its decentralized video-focused counterpart.

Presently, Larry has one other team member that is working on the product design. They are seeking members from the Cyber Republic to join them. The beta version of the project is due in the next couple of weeks. The team seeks to continue developing its infrastructure in order to create the ideal incentive program for all video gaming content creators.

JAMJAM hopes their ecosystem will galvanize the gaming community to share and discover new and exciting tips and strategies for the world’s most popular games.

The Cyber Republic is excited to follow JAMJAM’s development and we look forward to seeing all the benefits it brings to the booming gamer community and the Cyber Republic ecosystem.



Apply to join their team: JAMJAM

Other teams seeking additional members are:



TEAMS ON CYBER REPUBLIC THIS WEEK Team Name Description Money Market by James Trautman The idea is to create a stable asset similar to what is called money market fund in traditional finance. The purpose of said stable asset will be to serve not only as a stable cryptocurrency but also a store of value. If technically possible, the stable asset will be a basket of all stable coins on market. This may involve interoperability but am not sure. In the future, there will be many stable coins denominated in many fiat currencies. A money market structure of said assets will control risk by way of diversification and force stability/mean reversion by way of frequent re-balancing techniques. If said asset can be part of a dual token system, perhaps “gas” could be used to power said stable asset. This will then incentivize a “savings” behavior. Ultimately, if technically possible, we could have a diversified, low risk, basket of stable crypto currency denominated in multiple fiat bases with store of value properties built in. To my knowledge, no such stable asset exists in this space. Funontrip.com by Murali Babu The project is to create a travel portal with block chain technology and accept token as payment in block chain for tour packages in India. Users will get discounts better than the usage of currencies. Cost incurred in adverts will be utilized for discounts. Test project in a minor scale was launched in 2016 and dragged attention of users in southern india http://www.funontrip.com with 1000 followers in FB. PPX.VG by Oswaldo Leiret Unlike stablecoins, which just add additional layers of risk to fiat’s already complex risk set, PPX removes settlement, counterparty, and regulatory risks by subtracting money transmission and currency exchange from the money transfer process. Additionally, by merging Blockchain, API Key and ordinary banking technologies, PPX will publicly deliver digital-asset-aggregate audits in real-time. Alpha by Hyacinth Afam Landlord is property web application that allows users to buy, rent, lease and sell properties on the web using unique records peculiar to properties. Blockchain offers greater efficiency to this existing application because land records and deeds would be published on the blockchain eliminating obscurity. The real estate business needs disruption and we believe since the web failed to achieve these the Elastos ecosystem is promising enough to build great dapps that would revolutionize the web as it is Fundmyfarm by Murali Babu The project is to develop a crowd funding platform exclusively to farmers in India. The platform will enable the user to explore, select the farmer of his choice to fund and track the progress of the farm. The platform will be in block chain and administrator can track all donation for the farmers. Farmers can allocate the percentage of share of the yield for the donation or transact his profits through tokens to investors

Join them and get involved, or create your own, here: https://www.cyberrepublic.org/developer/search?lookingFor=TEAM

Community

Chinese Community Updates:

“ELA Talk” (Telegram weekly meetup): The Chinese Community Managers (Link)

For the Chinese Telegram weekly meetup on December 16th, seven of the community managers shared their stories of Elastos.

Jiawei Chen (陈嘉炜) – a keen supporter of the community



Xiaoheilang (小黑狼) – the creator of the Chinese Telegram community



Chuanbomengxian (传播梦想) – a pragmatic follower from Wenzhou



Wenyi (文亦) – an ambassador who can write both articles and codes



Laoganbu (老干部) – a community activist who dares to be a leader



Yijing (伊静) – a communicator who firmly believes in Elastos



Hao Cheng (程豪) – a believer whose faith roots from the understanding of the project

The community managers each shared how they found Elastos and why they were attracted to the project. Each became a believer by way of identifying and understanding the infrastructural dilemmas Elastos is setting out to resolve. The grand vision and pragmatic approach Elastos offers inspires them as community managers.

Most of the managers learned about Elastos quite early, when the project just went public. There wasn’t an established reward system when they made contributions, but they were keen to share their belief while learning more at the same time. They’ve loved seeing the community grow with so many community members. Though it was hard when the community became divided by strong opinions, they ultimately saw a stronger community emerge.

The managers emphasized that the project relies heavily on contributions from the community, and that’s the whole idea of the Cyber Republic. While members come from all walks of life, anyone can contribute in the fields they’re best at. Right now, there are many initiatives to bring members closer and answer questions; work such as translation, community development, and video content creation needs even more member participation. Cyber Republic–and thus Elastos–will see healthy growth from all these efforts.

Thanks to the Chinese Communities for offering an update on their activities!

We will choose winners for our favorite community contributions again starting 2019!

Additional content from the International community:

COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES IN OTHER LANGUAGES Language Description Reference Link ZH “People in Elastos”: Xiaoming Huang Link ZH “The Coming Elastos” (QQ group weekly meetup) 2nd meetup: Elachat – Mingming Liu Link ZH Release of Elastos stickers in WeChat Link ZH Elastos community event in Christmas (call for participation) Link ZH Outstanding clips of Elastos video contest 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 05 / 06 / 07 / 08

Interview with a Cyber Republic Community Member: Martin

1. Hi Martin! Thanks for agreeing to do an interview with us. Would you mind beginning by introducing yourself and telling us how you found Elastos? What attracted you to get so involved in the Cyber Republic?

My name is Martin from the South of England where there are fields, rolling hills, and rain. Whenever I’m not working, I’m getting dirty on my mountain bike, breathing in fresh country air.

I’d call myself a multidisciplinary designer. I love to be creative, from traditional mediums such as paper and oils to digital communication and user experience and interface design.

Social-driven interactions and interface design is my newest focus, and I will work on anything that keeps my creative mind ticking. As my background is from Retail Clothing Management and Visual Merchandising, T-shirt design was a good first step into the design world.

I started my journey into Elastos in March 2018. I’ve always known about cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, and I nearly bought it years ago when I traded FX as a retail trader.

I became interested again with the ICO and bitcoin boom and my research lead me to Elastos. I loved the tech but the old website had me worried that it wasn’t a serious project. After more research through Q2 of 2018, it became my favorite project; I wanted to get involved.

I was one of the winners of the early video contest, coming second with a (looking back) very rough whiteboard style animation. It was my first time creating something like that, so it was a bit out of my comfort zone.

When the Cyber Republic was released, I thought it was a great opportunity to get in at the start and to help as much as I could. I came because of the technology and what we stand for. The team, the community, and the opportunity to make a difference keeps me here.

2. Your content has been featured a number of times in the CR Weekly Updates, but aside from shirt designs, how have you participated in the Cyber Republic so far? What are you working on?

I have a few side-hustles to keep engagement high within the community which is nothing to do with any official paid work from Elastos or Cyber Republic. My tee merchandise design was one of them. I also post new motion graphic logos and banners on social media every few weeks to inspire and create awareness.

On the official side, I joined the design group with a bunch of other designers to help the core team when needed: graphic assets, concepts and feedback, pretty much any support I can give.

One of my main projects is a new video in the style similar to the one I did before; I’m completing it as we speak and it should be ready by the end of January.

I’m also trying to keep communication going within the Design CRcle–leading by doing. Hopefully it gets people inspired to get involved. Communication is important so I’m hoping we can keep improving and talk more between CRcles to improve task completion.

I’ve also been working on the Elastos Rack Card and One Pager Tasks. I’ve completely revamped the Cyber Republic YouTube Channel with new thumbnails, which is still not 100% complete, but I’m keeping an eye on it and creating any thumbnails that we need.

Once my video is done, I have plans to make more videos to create a mini series–but we’ll see what priorities and tasks pop up in the new year.

Ideally, I’d like to work on some UI/UX stuff for apps and continue leading the Design CRcle. I have a few interesting ideas for apps; I may ask the community to see if anyone wants to work on a bigger project with me.

3. As a designer, what do you think of the current website and logo of both Elastos and the Cyber Republic? What insights could you provide on the decisions that were made?

Geometric shapes and simplicity in user experience/interface are big trends at the moment. We have that covered on both sites. Yes… The sites still need tweaking. But a lot is being done to improve them. Cyber Republic brand colours I have always loved, and the Elastos brand colours I’d like to see increased vibrance a bit. As a designer, I have my own ideas and tweaks, but thats why I like the Cyber Republic; as a community we can give feedback and there is plenty of talent to help if needed.

The rebrand of the Elastos logo was very much needed, though. I never want to see the old colours of the old Elastos logo ever again.

There are many websites in the crypto and blockchain space with similar designs. Elastos and the Cyber Republic stand out with the clean font styles and minimal, but high impact, asset designs.

Otherwise, other aspects to the design are simply not completed. The core team members ask for feedback from the community designers and then they decide on solutions after careful thought. I’ve been asked for feedback multiple times on the Elastos website, from the navigation and menu, to what will happen and what we can do when we have to populate the site with more content. Just because you don’t hear things doesn’t mean they aren’t being thought about or worked on. If people want to get more involved, that’s what the Cyber Republic is for. Individuals can showcase what they can do by taking initiative.

Oh the team page on the Elastos website is coming! The team can’t communicate on everything, and I know the community wants as much information as possible–but sometimes it just doesn’t work like that. Things take time; things need to be planned and worked on. Everyone (and I mean everyone) I have dealt with has worked so hard and has so much passion for Elastos.

4. You’re very focused on brand image–why is this important to you from your perspective? What would you like to see with the Cyber Republic’s brand image? How do you envision it evolving in the public eye?

They say it’s not the business that creates the brand image but the customer. We create the image and the feel, but the identity is created in the customer’s head. Brand image gives us personality, consistency, differentiation, and awareness. All these things will create the identity in the end-user’s head.

The main thing we can do now is build upon what we have created. There are many things we can do to strengthen our brand, and not only the Design CRcle, but every CRcle can bring new ideas to the table. Communication and working together is the key.

5. You’ve started a number of teams, joined CRcles, and led design initiatives. Could you tell us a little about your projects for the Cyber Republic and what’s coming out? What are you trying to achieve with these initiatives?

I want to keep communication going above anything else. This is going to be so important going forward. We are at the very beginning.

The main reason I created the Design CRcle Idea Generation Team was to keep communication going between me and anyone that really wants to show initiative! I want us to pump out ideas and tasks so people get inspired. The Cyber Republic website will be getting some interesting updates over the course of the next year which will make things a lot easier to feel like one community.

6. Lastly, what’s next on your plate? Like, literally. What are you eating for your next meal?

Right this second, as I’m writing this, I’m having one of my favourite liquid lunches: Hazelnut Latte! This injects me with enough calories and caffeine to see me through half the day, with a steak and chips night for the other half!

The more on my plate, the better! I’m a quick eater but I’m always thirsty for more… There’s an analogy in there somewhere for how I like to work compared to how I eat.

Thanks for your time, Martin! Sounds like we share similar meal plans.

CR Guides

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

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