Elastos Smart Chain

The Journey So Far

 

The Journey Starts

The Elastos ecosystem EVM sidechain has existed for quite some time. Alas, it was unknown and unused in its infancy. Elastos Essentials wallet was born in 2021, providing a gateway from the Elastos Mainchain to the ELA-ETH Sidechain. This DeFi playground is the Elastos Smart Chain (ESC), now flourishing under the stewardship of the Cyber Republic (CR) and Elastos Foundation (EF). Secured by the 12 CR supernodes, ESC is a smart contract compatible layer-2 blockchain for Decentralised Finance (DeFi), secured by the Elastos Mainchain.

Essentials Wallet itself has undergone major improvements in the months since its inception. It brings ELA and DeFi asset management, Digital Identifiers (DIDs), Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) Voting and CR Voting into the palms of users’ hands.

ESC itself burst into life in late 2021 with the launch of Glide Finance. As a result, it was swiftly followed by the addition of Elk Finance, a cross-chain bridge. The meme tokens then arrived, and the flurry of interest and excitement that coincided with favourable market conditions saw feverish trading in Elastos Gold ($GOLD), Rong Inu ($RINU) and Feng Inu ($FINU) tokens, amongst others. 

Feeds then provided an outlet for NFTs to join the party with its Pasar integration. Early collections, such as Phantz, are now entrenched in ESC folklore as desirable collectibles. But they have utility too. Art and utility in just a few short months! Pasar is now an independent project that continues to grow in features and accessibility.

Such accessibility is made available with the launch of Elabox, a Web3 home server that now allows its owners to access Web3 DeFi opportunities on ESC without third party server access. Peer-to-peer secure access to Glide Finance is already live, with further access for decentralized applications (dApps) under development.

Elabox also runs Elastos nodes, thereby providing owners with a secure connection to ESC and Elastos mainchain. By running your own node you won’t need to rely on any other node to send your transactions. You can trust your own node to verify your transactions and therefore increase the security of your on-chain activity as well as the safety of your precious ELA. The Elabox creates the transaction and sends it directly from your own node. Do not trust, verify.

The Total Value Locked (TVL) on-chain is currently approximately $12m USD, total wallet addresses have exceeded 32,000, and there have been over 1.5m transactions completed.

It seems as though this is just the start of the journey.

Elastos Smart Chain as an Ethereum Layer 2

ESC as an Ethereum EVM-compatible side chain is being reformed to become a Layer 2 of Ethereum.  In this way, we can import Ethereum assets and applications to ESC, permitting easier and faster growth within the ecosystem. Furthermore, it will improve the current economic model of DPoS, enhancing the incentives for running nodes. This in turn can lead to better decentralisation of the network, with nodes being an opportunity for revenue generation.

The Layer 2 implementation leverages the existing DPoS nodes of Elastos Mainchain. In the first stage, 12 CR DPoS nodes are used to verify the Layer 2 transactions and cross-chain assets transfers.

Validation of Layer 2 transactions

Layer 2 transactions on ESC are validated by the 12 CR DPoS nodes, and transactions must be validated by 8+ nodes for confirmation. Cross-chain asset transfers are handled by the CR DPoS nodes, so cross-chain transactions also require the signature of at least 8 CR nodes. 

In addition, for asset security in the early stages, the Layer 2 cross-chain bridge will introduce a special node to participate in the cross-chain consensus of assets. This special node has “one and only” veto power. A cross-chain transaction needs validation by 8+ CR nodes and the special node. If the special node rejects the transaction, no matter how many CR nodes confirm it, the transaction will be rejected..

This mechanism is able to build a decentralized, self-managing Layer 2 infrastructure which will benefit Elastos ecosystem. Furthermore, the income from ESC Layer 2 will effectively supplement the income of CR DPoS nodes.

The ESC Layer 2 is code-complete for its Phase One goals, under final testing, and is expected to be launched in mid-April, 2022.

Projects on ESC: 

Wallet

LIVE – Elastos Essentials

A wallet is both the simplest part, and yet also the most complex and important, of a Web3 landscape. Usability is key, and Essentials has this embedded in its DNA..

Essentials supports 11 chains by default, with countless others lining up for deployment. Users can also add other chains manually so that all their blockchain activity is accessible from one central hub. Wallet Connect using QR scanning allows this mobile wallet to interact with browser dApps. Essential provides a gateway to DeFi and Web3 for all users.

Further to multiple blockchain support is the portfolio tracking integration provided by Tin.Network. This allows users to monitor their holdings from within the wallet itself.

Finally, and of particular importance to Elastos, is the DID management suite inside Essentials. Personal details can be added, verified (via kyc-me.io) and published to the blockchain: Users now have a verified and Elastos secured DID for their Web3 journey. Own your own data.

Further functions within the wallet include Hive storage management, DPoS voting for the mainchain nodes, CR Proposal and Suggestion reviewing, and Red Packet gift distribution tools.

DEX

LIVE – Glide Finance

As the first native Elastos DEX, Glide has quickly established itself as the main DeFi hub for ESC. 

With TVL currently exceeding 6.5m USD (with a peak over 12m USD), and daily users between 1.5-3.0k, it is an integral part of the Elastos trading experience. Multiple Liquidity Provider (LP) farms are available, with rewards paid in the GLIDE token, along with a percentage of swap fees. APRs for staking and farming are currently rather stable and lie between 50-150% in most cases. The swap fees include a portion assigned for the purchase of both ELA and GLIDE. Since launching, the LP farms have been adjusted by community consensus using the snapshot.org voting mechanism. 

The GLIDE tokens purchased from swap fees are periodically burned, making it a disinflationary asset. The percentage of ELA purchased during swap transactions is used to fund a single staking pool for those locking their ELA in the protocol, helping to provide income to users and stability to the ELA price. For the GLIDE token itself, 6.077M out of 50M of the total supply have been mined. Excluding the team wallet, community treasury and burned tokens, this equates to approximately 4.35m GLIDE in circulation.

Glide also hosts the ShadowTokens cross-chain bridge in its interface, providing a pathway to ESC from HECO and Ethereum initially, and now BSC as well. Part of the bridging process includes the provision of a small amount of ELA to facilitate transactions on ESC for new users without ELA (for gas) in their ESC wallet. Funded by the CR grant, this has allowed new users a seamless transition to Layer 2 DeFi with Elastos.

Partnerships with Elk Finance, Material, and Phantz NFTs have brought Glide users new farms and single staking pools, and enhanced single staking interest rates respectively. A willingness to cooperate with incoming projects and provide utility to NFTs marks Glide as a benefactor and pillar of trust and support for the community.

LIVE – Elk Finance

The first non-native project to launch on ESC. 

Elk’s arrival marked an opportunity for users from 15 EVM chains to transfer value to ESC in seconds. Cronos, OEC, Hoo, Moonriver, Avalanche, Kucoin, Harmony, BSC, Gnosis, Heco, Polygon, Fantom, Fuse, Telos, IoTeX are all open to ESC via the ElkNet bridge. Ethereum and Arbitrum are scheduled to be added to their roster of connected networks.

Farming opportunities also are available at Elk, with impermanent loss protection and, for the ELK-ELK pairing, the partnership with Glide adds bonus GLIDE tokens to farmers that further incentivise liquidity provision for the critical chain token pairing. This reduces the price impact when bridging to ESC, so larger sums from Elk’s expanding supported networks can be transferred with little friction. This conduit has opened the doors to DeFi explorers and pioneers from some of the largest smart contract chains available.

A relationship with Elastos Essentials has also allowed for easy transfers and access to Elk directly from the native wallet. Future developments will see Elk release an SDK, proxy tokens, and ElkNet 2.0, so having this corridor from other ecosystems is invaluable for bringing value to ESC.

LIVE – Bnair

A smaller DEX and one that has concentrated its efforts on supporting more esoteric tokens that started life on Glide.

LP farms have been established for a range of tokens, with reward incentives paid in the DEX token, CLUBBNAIR. We wait to see what is in store for their users in the future. New tokens, farms and partner integrations are all possible on ESC.

Cross-chain Bridges

LIVE – ShadowTokens

A POA bridge that currently supports multiple assets from Ethereum, BSC and HECO to ESC; and vice versa. Developed by a community member and current CR council members, ShadowTokens is integral to the continued growth of ESC. Its fast and secure mechanism is currently being prepared for a security audit to further cement its position as a safe and effective means of asset transfer into ESC.

LIVE – Elk Finance

Using a proprietary ElkNet mechanism that permits the near-instant 1:1 transfer of their native ELK token between all supported chains, Elk has allowed users from hitherto inaccessible chains to discover Elastos and join the DeFi experience from the start. 

Partnership with Glide Finance is likely just the start and discussions are underway with other ESC protocols to bring Elk further into the Elastos family. 

Launchpad and Community Grants

LIVE – Silverstarter

As one of the newer protocols on ESC, Silver Starter is currently preparing a host of facilities for new projects and the Elastos Community. Token and project launches are lined up already, with LP farming and staking opportunities undergoing final testing.

Soon we will see two new projects launch on ESC with the assistance of Silver Starter, thus providing further DeFi options on Elastos.

LIVE – E-lab

The main goal of E-Lab is to fund development of promising projects built on Elastos infrastructure by gaining community support. Where projects are unable to secure funding from the CR, E-lab has been created for the community to vote directly to support projects that catch the eye. An allowance has been secured from the CR to fund the successful projects, but these proposals are in the hands of each community member with a DID and registration on the E-lab platform.

Projects must be built on Elastos infrastructure, using at least one of the following components:
  • DID/EID
  • Hive
  • Carrier / P2P
  • Mainchain
  • Elastos Smart Chain
There is a maximum of 10,000 ELA available for each proposal submitted to E-lab and only one winner per month, based on the voting results. Projects can advertise their proposal on social networks and in the dedicated Discord channel to try and win the favour of the people. This is the Roman gladiator arena of Elastos funding!

NFT Marketplaces

LIVE – Pasar Protocol

Pasar started out as an “app within an app” on Elastos Feeds and quickly secured itself as the de facto NFT buying option for the Elastos ecosystem. Now it has transitioned to a standalone dApp option, with pasarprotocol.io/ now available to users seeking NFT trading opportunities on ESC. Further development is underway, Web3 integration with Elabox is lined up, and more features for NFT transactions are being investigated and implemented. There is lots more to come from Pasar.

LIVE – Elacity

Following the success of the pioneer marketplaces, Elacity quickly caught the imagination of the ESC community. The Bella Series in particular garnered much attention from loyal Elastos users with the whole collection selling out incredibly swiftly. Not least amongst the sales are the “Gold Bellas”, all of which are much coveted.

The ELA received for Gold Bellas is now paired with the Elacity Gold Treasury holdings and is locked liquidity for GOLD on Glide Finance. This supports Glide, Elacity, GOLD holders, and the wider community, providing an asset that can be considered a store of value for ESC now, and in the future.

Upon the completion of the initial sale the resale space was also fiercely competitive and the Bella Series resale contract continues to add to the Elacity coffers, ensuring that continued progress and feature enhancements can be added as the city grows and evolves.

LIVE – Vitrim:

As a partner to the Elaverse, an ESC Metaverse project, Vitrim has so far provided users with the chance to purchase Eliens from the planets of Hedrom and Xenora. Which Elien are you? Or are you both?

Majestic Labs is not stopping at just an NFT marketplace with Vitrim. Further to this is the birth of a DEX (with charting tools), a dApp Store, an Elastos Ecosystem Calendar and the VITX token. Vitrim is poised to further support ESC users in the future.

LIVE – ODin NFT and IN DEVELOPMENT – MetEast

With support from members of the Pasar and OdinNFT team, and with the backing of Sunny Feng Han (Elastos co-founder), MetEast is building an NFT Marketplace aimed, intriguingly, towards Western users, as a sister project to OdinNFT. They are working hard to ready the contracts and UX for exploration and expansion this year.

NFTs celebrating and linked to Chinese culture are available including museums, The Great Wall, The Old Summer Palace, the Three Kingdoms and the prosperous Tang Dynasty.

NFT Standalone Projects

LIVE – Bunny Punks

The Bunny Punks were amongst the earliest NFTs available on ESC. Their v1 collection provided owners with airdropped v2 NFTs and the sale process randomly rewards holders with a portion of the sale income generated by each mint.

Further news is sure to widen some eyes and, when the team chooses to release this, expect to see something that hasn’t been seen in the NFT space on ESC yet. In fact, the Bunny plans are such that NFT advocates will have a real and genuine reason to consider ESC as a hub for NFT innovation. The Bunny litepaper is now available, give it a read.

Maybe this project needs to be in the “bridge” section too…NFT bridging? News, fresh today!

Lending/Borrowing (banking)

LIVE – FilDA

Following the ESC launch FilDA has raced past $6 million in just a few short hours.

Since launching on HECO in January 2021, FilDA currently provides loan services for 23+ cryptocurrency assets on five chains. Users’ interest earned has exceeded $20 million USD so far. The developers are staunch Elastos supporters and, with the advent of a DEX and other DeFi options on ESC, the recent deployment of FilDA on the smart chain is clearly something of a homecoming.

FilDA has always adhered to the principle of “user first, safety first” and ESC users will now be able to lend and borrow their crypto assets safely and easily using FilDA’s improved UX, low on-chain transaction fees, and flexible interest rates.

The lending contracts on HECO are audited by many security agencies, including Slowmist, Certik, FairyProof, and Knownsec. Now verified and monitored by multiple parties for more than three months, for FIlDA 2.0 we invited PeckShield to complete an audit of FilDA’s original code and the new code in version 2.0. ESC will benefit from this commitment to security as the project grows further.

Next steps for FilDA include:

  • Deposit and lending business of cryptocurrency assets on ESC
  • Deposit and lending business of synthetic assets such as LP tokens
  • Leveraged lending business based on unsecured lending
  • Deploy and run on multiple chains
  • Cross-chain lending business (FilDA 2.1)
    • FilDA 2.1 will provide services using multi-chain routing, and truly realize multi-chain network banking.
    • FilDA 2.1 will also establish inter-chain credit transfer based on a decentralized cross-chain bridge and FilDA’s credit line for assets, support leveraged-lending, and improve the utilization of funds to completely change the current shortcomings of over-collateralized mortgage lending.
    • Users will be able to deposit on one chain and borrow/withdraw money on another chain, just like you can withdraw money from any ATM in the “real world”.

Additional airdrop rewards for early participants in FilDA are planned. These are a thank you to the community for activity at the beginnings of the protocol.

IN DEVELOPMENT – CreDA

Like FilDA, CreDA deploying on ESC is a return home. Currently live on the Arbitrum chain, CreDA users can secure a Credit Score based on their on-chain activities. New protocols and chains are being added so the score can be as comprehensive as possible.

What benefits does this Credit Score bring to the user?

Currently there are leveraged-farming services provided in partnership with Sushiswap and FilDA with further benefits being worked on. These include lending, discounts, even un-collateralised lending – a first in DeFi loan operations.

CreDA is championing the provision of DeFi opportunities for the “unbanked”, for those without access to traditional finance. By utilising the DID facilities of Elastos and the ESC smart contract capabilities, this will give those without access to the archaic and gated financial establishments of the past. CreDA is most definitely looking to the future of banking.

Metaverse

IN DEVELOPMENT – Elaverse, ODin NFT, Elacity

Shrouded in mystery, the metaverses on ESC are still in a fledgling stage. The projects are starting with their NFT offerings and how these are integrated into the larger metaverse vision is an interesting story to follow.

Odin, when asked about Elastos as the home for their metaverse has said the following:

“We have seen that Elastos can provide a complete solution for the meta-universe, and NFTs are only the beginning of the meta-universe. To run the virtual world in the future will require not only NFT assets, but also decentralized communication and decentralized storage. Only by letting the meta-universe run on a completely decentralized platform can its value be fully realized.

Elastos not only provides a smart contract sidechain compatible with EVM, but also a decentralized Carrier and storage solution called Hive. Odin chose Elastos after carefully investigating multiple platforms.”

With projects considering and choosing Elastos on the merits of Web3 security and decentralization, we find ourselves well positioned for future growth. Thanks must go to the Elastos advocates who are informing and explaining the benefits that Elastos can bring to true Web3 developers.

Portfolio Tracker Support

LIVE – Tin.network

One of the first portfolio tracking services to support ESC, Tin gives Web3 wallet users the chance to see holdings from countless blockchains in one unified view. This is a service that is currently unmatched in DeFi and Elastos is pleased to be part of the supported chains. Further tokens and dapps can be added quickly, and the developers have shown themselves to act quickly when asked to add ESC projects.

Charting

LIVE – Dexscreener

Like Tin, Dexscreener is a data aggregator, but this time for DEX transactions and token performance across blockchains far and wide. Dexscreener tracks Glide, Bnair and Elk in real time.

NFTs Collections so far

NFT collections released on ESC include Bella Series, Bunny Punks, Web4chads, ElaGekos, CreDA Tigers, Dropz, Elastos Bulls, Fennec Fox and Vegas Mike. They are the forerunners for Elastos in this space and these offerings can be found on the marketplaces outlined above.

ELAMOTORS Inc., Collections have provided the following information to the CR:

ELAbot Collection 

  • Unique holders – 16
  • Total NFTs – 36
  • ELA exchanged/won/earned – 270 ELA

The META Primates

  • Unique Holders: 15
  • Total NFTs released: 48
  • ELA exchanged/won/earned: 736

Great discounts are available for all NFTs minted by ELAMOTORS are available once hold just one of them. Premium Limited Edition NFTs are also on the way (with blood, sweat and tears spilt in their production). These will be available as free giveaways to hodlers (Elastos inspired). Who will win?

More surprises are coming soon too, along with merchandise (caps/shirts), for which they are finalizing distribution details.

The team is very very excited about their long term project. This is what we want to hear!

ElaBullsNFTs

A bold and strong collection with vibrant colours and a following comprising of:

  • Unique Holders: 12
  • Total NFTs released: 21
  • ELA exchanged/won/earned: 168

Who dares to run with the ELA Bulls?

Elacity

Elacity released their Bella Series earlier this year and also hosts numerous collections from the selection above, as well as standalone items. Some statistics so far:

  • Unique addresses: 769
  • NFT assets available: 1988
  • ELA volume traded: 46,933

Impressive numbers from a marketplace that is carving out a significant niche in NFT trading on ESC.

Bunny Punks

With two collections (the originals and the 3D Punks) and the BUN token already released, the NFT bridge is possibly the first of its kind. Innovation like this is bound to be of interest to NFT and DeFi enthusiasts alike.

How to join in on Elastos Smart Chain

ESC supports a series of features, all of which combine to provide a field for innovation across Web3 development::

  1. Solidity Smart Contract Support: The ESC supports smart contracts written in Solidity, the execution of which opens up a programmable environment for dApp development.
  2. Chain Security from Bitcoin’s Robust Hashpower: Through its connection with Elastos mainchain, the ESC is protected by the industry-leading Bitcoin network hashpower.
  3. EVM Compatibility: ESC provides the EVM community of blockchain developers the opportunity to build new, existing, and increasingly sophisticated applications on Elastos, and the solidity smart contract support to the Elastos ecosystem allows established skills to be used in the creation of myriad protocols in our safe and secure environment.
  4. Flexible, Scalable Sidechain Architecture: Elastos’s mainchain-sidechain architecture is highly flexible and highly scalable. The Elastos mainchain supports the development of both a large number of identical sidechains for scalability purposes. As a result of this, a wide array of unique sidechains with varied forms of consensus are possible. What sidechains will come next?
  5. Decentralized Finance (DeFi): DeFi continues to proliferate and Elastos now has an arena for its own ecosystem of interoperable DeFi applications. One that is growing all the time.

RPC Details

Conclusion

Even though Elastos Smart Chain has been available for some time, the tinder has now been shown a spark. This spark quickly became a flame and now more and more fuel is being added to the fire of DeFi, Web3 and data-secure progress.

Projects will appear, and some may fade away, but the foundations are now in place. The Elastos/TLGG marketing strategy is under final review and market-making services are aligning. Greater liquidity and trading support will benefit the ELA token itself.

With the Ethereum Layer 2 transition, the DPoS 2.0 changes for Elastos, and the early projects on ESC dedicated to continuous improvement, it is a hopeful and exciting time for Elastos – particularly in its Smart Chain playground. And ESC is just the first sidechain…

Yes, we’re taking the first steps, but the road is wide, and there’s room for everyone on the Elastos journey.