July 2022

In July, CRC hit the ground running by tackling a number of tasks for the DAO. Kairon Labs, the market making service provider for Elastos, recently conducted a community AMA to discuss their purpose and progress. The CR Council met for their biweekly meetings, discussing various topics. Attendance is high, and participation too.

New initiatives have emerged from Proposal #64 in efforts to bring more value to CR via the CR Grant Program. Proposal #83 came to the forefront for the sole reason of making sure the Elastos mainchain remains running in all circumstances.

Even though the bears continue to dominate crypto and traditional markets, the CRC (Elastos DAO) is maintaining a build philosophy and strives for excellence every single day.

Kairon Labs AMA

On July 22nd, the Elastos Info team and Kairon Labs hosted an AMA on Twitter regarding Proposal #80- Contract Kairon Labs to Perform Market Making Services for Elastos. Fakhul Miah from Elation Studios originally pursued this proposal to attract more popular exchanges and build the value of ELA. He also joined the AMA to give context to what this initiative means for Elastos. Matt Engle represented Kairon Labs while the Elastos Info team hosted the AMA. Zach asked valuable questions and invited questions from the listeners throughout, ably answered by Matt and Fakhul.

Listen to the AMA here

Kairon Labs only focuses on the crypto space and has a great feel for the opportunities for market making therein. In essence, they described a market maker as a conduit that provides better spreads for ELA liquidity across multiple prime CEX and DEX listings, improving and easing the trading experience.

According to Fakhul, Kairon Labs stood out as the best fit for Elastos because they have proved their worth in assembling top tier exchanges for various crypto and Web3 projects. Kairon Labs receives a monthly retainer and profit sharing, based on performance, that is shared between them and Elastos. Kairon Lab’s boutique specialization style, with true collaboration and accessibility, attracted Elation Studios to designate them as Elastos’ primary market maker. Some coins scheduled to be listed on Coinbase alongside ELA did not get their order book management in line with requirements, whereas Kairon Labs had all their ducks in a row and successfully aided ELA in securing the listing.

Kairon Labs makes sure that they can deliver 100% of everything discussed and agreed with their clients. Managing 60+ market making clients and 20+ full time employees, Kairon Labs has great experience and resources that create value for all projects under their umbrella. Many market makers in the space have specific price milestones that don’t necessarily align with being a neutral party and this gives them the power to sell a large amount of coins when the markets appreciate. Kairon Labs doesn’t align with this model and, from a pure business ethics standpoint, they want all stakeholders to succeed together. 

How exactly does Kairon Labs accomplish efficient market making for their clients? Their focus is to keep a tight spread between the buys and sells. They also look at making sure the order book has sufficient liquidity depth. Kairon Labs aligns prices between pairs, performs buys and sells to prevent extreme volatility, and maintains a competitive and well-balanced marketplace across all exchanges. They also provide free, exclusive weekly market insights for all of their clients and communities. Kairon Labs also hosts an OTC service for large transactions that could drastically impact the market. 

Market making isn’t the only string to Kairon Labs‘ bow, they also do a great job of creating partnerships between their clients, providing value for themselves and the projects they work with. For example, Kairon Labs has clients like Symbiosis that provide bridging services, including for projects such as Elastos. In the AMA, Fakhul added a few points of potential collaborations with projects that provide consulting and tokenomics services, which is only possible via our burgeoning relationship with Kairon Labs. 

Given all the services Kairon Labs provides, Elastos and CR will gain much more exposure across many facets of the market.

Biweekly CR Council Meeting

CRC convened to discuss a number of proposals and initiatives in their Biweekly CR Council Meeting on June 29th and July 13th. Elation Studios provided an update on Proposal #75 (the marketing collaboration with TLGG). To address the findings TLGG presented, there needs to be a plan of action, a team, a budget, and delegated responsibilities to overcome the various hurdles identified in the report. Based on the observations made, Elation Studios conducted a series of TLGG Organizational Task Force Meetings in order to find a pathway to success.

The next topic on the agenda was concerning the Business Continuity Plan (further info below) and CR consensus changes. The key takeaway was that there need to be a minimum of 30 nodes running in order to ensure consensus within the blockchain. Considering that there are 12 Council nodes, the Council decided that at least 20 stand-by nodes should be ready for action to maintain mainchain consistency and keep it running continuously.

Elation Studios provided an exciting update on establishing CRC as a legal entity in Delaware. In December of 2021, Elation Studios wrote up Proposal #73 which was passed by CRC. One of the main reasons CR was able to conduct business with TLGG, Kairon Labs and secure the Coinbase listing, is that CRC is legally registered as an LLC. 

The costs associated with being an LLC include a yearly fee with a local agent, tax implications and various audits. Ryan from Glide Finance previously took on the role of managing these tasks and should be compensated for conducting these services. 

CRC member, Sash, discussed the success of the recent AMA hosted by Elk Finance, a CR and Elastos ecosystem partner. Other Elastos projects that took part included Glide Finance, Elacity, CreDA, and FilDA, while Rong Chen presented an introduction and Cassie spoke about CRC.

Via Elk Finance’s main technology, the cross-chain ElkNet bridge, the project provides instant transfers between 19 of the most popular blockchains on the planet. Elastos has immense power to further strengthen its cross-chain capabilities and will be able to access more assets from these other blockchains. New sidechains would also benefit from such interoperability.

Biweekly Minutes:

Proposals in the public spotlight

Proposal #64 – CR Grant Program

In early November 2021, the CR Grant Program Proposal from ecosystem builder Sjun Song passed successfully. The nature of the proposal is that the Elastos community has the opportunity to directly vote for project funding opportunities in a referendum-like manner. There are various proposals and suggestions that the community supports, but, ultimately, do not get accepted by CRC. The CR Grant Program allows community members to create suggestions and raise funds without the checks and balances of CRC. 

One of the more important suggestions recently written up by Sash, the CRC member developing Elacity, pertained to CR Council Compensation. While some Council members did not agree that a sitting council should agree to more funds for their services, the majority of the Council felt that this incentivized proposal brings more engagement to its sitting members and would increase the overall productivity.

After the suggestion was analyzed by CRC and the community, it was presented as Proposal #84 but narrowly missed consensus. The proposal was originally mooted for consideration by the outgoing Council, however the end-of-term deadline passed before this was possible. An E-LAB proposal was therefore created to gauge the community feeling for this adjustment. It received 25 “Yes” and 0 “No” votes, showing support for the idea, but only from a small sample of Elastos community members. As a result, some Council members thought the voting results on E-LAB were not representative of the entire community because the sample size was so small.

CRC member and Guardian MButcho opened a special E-LAB proposal for the ESC (and Fusion) Bunny Punk NFT project on August 1st. This community vote is to help fund the first cross-chain NFT bridge on Elastos. The original suggestion was created on July 14th with a budget of 10,000 ELA to create the bridge and increase adoption of NFTs on the Elastos network. Stay tuned to the proposal and be sure to get registered and vote on the E-LAB website.

Proposal #83 – Business Continuity Plan for DPoS nodes (Stand-by CR Nodes)

The Elastos blockchain has a unique dual-consensus mechanism between merge mining with Bitcoin and the DPoS Supernode system of 36 nodes. 12 of these nodes are run by CR Council members, with the other 24 nodes maintained by the community. Proposal #83 looks to create a contingency plan in the event that the number of nodes drops below a critical level (25 nodes). Such an occurrence could lead to an Elastos mainchain halt. 

CRC unanimously voted “Yes” on passing this proposal for a number of reasons:

  • Security and stability of the main chain.
  • Consistent blockchain consensus allows the pillars of Elastos to function.
  • Projects and businesses need to have faith in the infrastructure they are built on.

While these new stand-by nodes would be centralized in nature and the likelihood of them being triggered is low, this proposal provides the ecosystem with insurance in the case of the mainchain halting if there are not enough nodes to confirm transactions on the network. 

The creators of this proposal MButcho and Nenchy agree that the ongoing resilience of the mainchain would improve dramatically with this plan in place. 

 

Conclusion

In a world dealing with wars, recessions, inflation and chaos, CR and Elastos maintain their democratic place in the ever-expanding Web3 space. For transparency, the CR Council is evolving its communication pathways, with the CR Council Biweekly meeting minutes now shared with the community. 

Partnerships like Kairon Labs will ensure market making is effectively managing liquidity across various exchanges and marketplaces. The CR Grant Program is continuing to bring new initiatives to the community using inclusive voting opportunities. The stand-by node contingency plan ensures the Elastos mainchain endures.

The Cyber Republic is a domain in which its participants are intrinsically motivated to create new and better ways to achieve the ultimate Web3 platform. The actions in the month of July alone show that the community and CR Council are actively working to move Elastos forwards, and will do so this term, and for years to come.