2 August 2023 / 09:00-11:00AM (UTC-5)

ATTENDEES

Council: Bocheng, Elation Studios, Gelaxy, M&N, Sash, H&4, PG Bao, Rebecca, Song Sjun.

Secretariat: Cassie, Greg

ABSENTEES

Strawberry Council, Sai

AGENDA

  1. Chainlink integration
  2. Elavation Proposal
  3. BPoS consensus/Ela staking rewards calculator
  4. Destiny Calling Accelerator Program
  5. StakingRewards.com Elastos (BPoS) integration + marketing + event attendance

REPORTS

1) Chainlink integration

  • https://chain.link/cross-chain
  • Chainlink are releasing a cross-chain solution
    • Messaging protocol
    • Bridging protocol
    • Calls on one chain can influence other chain actions/transactions – not merely token transfers
  • Chainlink are a major player in crypto – top20 where all others are L1 (plus some others like Shiba Inu, Doge etc.)
  • Recommendation to read the Chainlink documentation on CCIP
  • DID use for this cross-chain solution could be powerful as DIDs seem to be taking a more prominent position in Web3 right now.

Comments

Fakhul – How does this bridge work and what are the cost implications? Chainlink are the leading oracle provider and this is where their market cap dominance has come from. The biggest issue with Chainlink is how accessible they are – they are very expensive and 

Sash – Not entirely sure. They are taking cross-chain as part of the oracle problem and bringing it under their umbrella of possible tech solutions. Their status is such that they will likely make big moves in the cross-chain space. It came up as part of discussions in the Metaverse Standards Forum (that Sash was invited to join – and has).

Fakhul – We can speak to our contacts at Chainlink about how this CCIP can be used to enhance access to Elastos and DIDs.

Sash – DIDs are perhaps becoming more interesting than the smart contract chains. We’ve been obsessed with smart contract chains, but crypto is becoming invisible. DID as a sign-in system can allow us to communicate our identity to any chains. For crypto to be hidden then the DID will be critical but will also need to function seamlessly across all specifications so that users don’t even realize what is happening to achieve their goals.

2) Elavation Proposal

Comments

Nenchy – “30,000 developers reached” was the target, but this was tripled to 90,000. How can we interpret this?

Fakhul – The tooling for capturing data is not as complete as expected or necessary on Elastos channels. So it is hard to really track this. This figure is an extrapolation of messaging, advertising etc. and how many of the impressions are likely to be developers (from statistical models). It doesn’t mean 90,000 conversations.

Essentials had issues with DIDs and KYC.me (losing its VC issuer for KYC)

E-labs was shut down.

A lot of time was spent on DIDs and part of the findings showed how many DIDs are in fact custodial because it’s a really hard challenge to solve (for workability and scalability). The remainder of the year is lining up well to

Some of the products have lost funding and active development is now basically halted – much of this was due to Carrier being unavailable and the options undertaken to overcome this lack didn’t work. The truth remains that Pasar and Feeds have fundamentally stopped new development activity during 2023 so it would be reckless to promote them as useful or mature dApps. Stronger targets were in place but development stopping is out of our control and such targets need to be tweaked.

Nenchy – Has anything changed in five years? DIDs seem to be the closest to being ready for making a difference to Elastos’ position in Web3. The “Elastos as a whole” idea is still very fragmented and the chances of it becoming a whole still seems distant.

Fakhul – Elastos had some great blueprints but what ended up being built from these blueprints is of varying quality and maturity. Future KPIs will need to be much more targeted and relevant to what we have and what we can do at a development level – now we know more about where this project actually is in terms of progress and position.

Hwedini – When will partnerships translate to deployments? We need to keep momentum going.

Fakhul – These are due throughout the rest of 2023. Some are already live (Bitstack, Witnet for example, Add3 – likely in September. Late Q3 for others).

Hwedini – Can this kind of information be published so it’s not just announcements and no products. Is everything ready to bring liquidity and new projects into Elastos? Or any products poised to use the Elastos Tech stack.

Fakhul – We do try to include this in the article releases, but perhaps it’s not clear enough. But we can look into creating a holistic overview of what’s coming up next (from existing relationships). It’s always awkward with timelines as projects rarely give exact deployment dates in software.

Greg/Fakhul – Yes, we have filled many of the gaps in infrastructure for ESC and are preparing an accelerator/grant programme to try to attract protocols to join our ecosystem. This will accept participants from across Web3 but grants will not be paid out until a definite and working protocol is live on ESC.

We have two bridges already that can handle smaller amounts (Elk) and larger amounts (ShadowTokens). Other bridges are also welcomed and being looked into (Axelar, Wormhole, WanBridge, etc.) Axelar will be the most likely candidate for the next bridge in/out of ESC and we await their self-service option to be released. Multichain was a possibility but they imploded – kind of a lucky escape! Axelar does have a cost implication (to get validators to support ESC – several thousand USD needed). It would help us secure a closer connection with Celo.

Chainlink CCIP has limited chains available to it right now. The same is true of Circle’s CCTP system. In time maybe they’ll look at Elastos but not in the short term.

The Graph requires a workaround and some development environments (OpenZep) aren’t ideally placed, but these elements aren’t blockers.

Hwedini – What other bridges have you contacted? Wanchain/Wormhole/Chainge? Which assets can Axelar support?

Greg – Axelar were going to charge us for integration (like many chains) but they were lacking the manpower to bring the chains online. So they are concentrating on their Self-Service (DIY) option for new chains to join the Axelar bridging ecosystem. The choices for cross-chain solutions are like this for now – pay an eye-watering amount or build it yourself using established tech or make your own.

Hwedini – Chicken and egg, we need liquidity for users and users with liquidity – how does it enter?

Greg – ShadowTokens works just fine but there needs to be something on-chain for new users and liquidity to use. The current ecosystem is too thin to make

Hwedini – Can the minimum bridging amounts be reduced by ShadowTokens?

Greg (from previous meeting notes) – The bridge is running at a break-even position so if enhancements are desired then funding is needed to allow for further development to occur (more chains, assets, nodes).

Cassie – Where do all the blog post statistics come from?

Fakhul – info blog posts, LinkedIn and Twitter posts that Elavation directly wrote. Each post on a channel is a separate publication (as modified and adapted for each platform).

Hwedini – This is the fourth and final unlock for funding. Will you continue after this year? EF have Elavation as a core part of the future of Elastos in a market-led approach.

Fakhul – The suggestion is to cover the final phase of the proposal. A further proposal will only occur if the EF and Council want to fund us and want us to continue. The EF will likely take their lead from CRC so if the Council wants us, and the community does too, then we can look to continue.

3) BPoS consensus/ELA staking rewards calculator

  • Nothing specific to share except to finalize the next steps.
    • Perhaps a poll to the community is needed?
    • We need consensus with the council before approaching the community
  • A discussion was had and these subjects covered:
    • Redelegate from inactive to active – this is mostly agreed on
      • How long before these are possible (3, 7, 14 days)
    • Redelegate from active to active also worth tackling at the same time
      • If this is too hard to agree on then just inactive to active redelegation 
  • A conversation was started but the interaction from the council about this topic was negligible – few contributions and no clear direction. Will it stay like this for another month?

Comments

Gelaxy – The most senior blockchain team member (Su Yipeng) has outlined the following details:

Two times this redelegation is needed:

  • Active to active nodes (Two conditions: 1 – if voter withdraws votes this cannot mean the node becomes inactive itself. 2 – 7 days to redelegate votes.)
  • Inactive to active (Condition: If a node goes inactive for 10 days then voters should be allowed to redelegate to an active node.)

Nenchy – What is the difference if votes expire compared with redelegated? Why does this deserve different rules?

Gelaxy – It is to remove the variability and uncertainty for the nodes. Having these rules makes this less uncertain – it reduces fluctuations.

Nenchy – Must the voter babysit a node owner? I don’t feel this is appropriate. It isn’t pro-decentralisation and limits the freedom for voters. The main point is to lock ELA, a redelegation doesn’t change the lock time, but if a node dies then the voter is left helpless and has no recourse to make things work better for them and Elastos. Delegating choice, while holding the lock is much more reasonable.

What about slashing? Will this ever happen? No one has a reason to stay online as there is no discouragement for being offline.

Zehua – It’s a fine balance between stability and more freedom for voters. Let’s say some voters on nodes near the 80k line move their votes it can cause active nodes to go inactive suddenly. It’s an extreme situation that the design has tried to avoid.

BPoS rewards calculator

[Quick demo from Greg]

  • Councilors can experiment with the calculator and send feedback to Greg who will pass to the relevant parties.
  • It is possible to change parameters like ELA staked and staking period (days or date) and it shows the rewards estimated and the date of lock release.

4) Destiny Calling Accelerator Program

  • Suggestion coming soon for an incentive program to drive interest for protocols to deploy on Elastos.
  • EF and Council funded
    • Current ecosystem partners have also offered to contribute to the prize pool with benefits, discounts and support
    • Alpha Growth will be helping with this campaign and they have lots of experience in this field for numerous ecosystems and have seen on-chain protocol deployments increase after their efforts.
  • Priority is on-chain activity and action for users and from users.

Comments

Cassie – Will this include the gas adjustment idea from Bocheng?

Fakhul – We have spoken about this offline and agreed to keep it separate. One of things that might affect Destiny Calling is the proposed increase in gas costs so they can be redistributed to dApp builders.

Hwedini – Is this gas adjustment and profit-sharing be part of the Destiny Calling campaign?

Fakhul – Not directly as it’s a proposal to be raised by those who suggested it. If it passes then we will help with promoting it and will include this in the materials for Destiny Calling because it is part of how ESC works. Aluminum 

Zehua – To start with, the profit sharing from gas payments to protocols might have to be distributed in a more centralized way. If we used a decentralized solution the development time could be really long as it isn’t very easy. The incentive from the gas would be transferred to a centralized address and distributed to projects. It would be temporary and the team is researching how to make it decentralized in the future. 

5) StakingRewards.com Elastos (BPoS) integration + marketing + event attendance

Comments

Nenchy – Will this ELA be sold for covering costs? One time fee for staking rewards integration or for other things too?

Fakhul – ELA will be used to cover the integration and annual subscription. It doesn’t cover any traveling costs for the event. There are possibilities to participate (booth, speak, sponsor) but this is expensive so is unlikely to be.

Nenchy – What metrics are there for “break-even” for the ELA outlay? What should make us want to renew after one year? What’s the P&L, how can we justify this annual fee?

Fakhul – A calculator will be built, advertising on their website, they will connect us with so many other validators so we get new eyes on Elastos, there’s lots to learn from the event too. We can track clicks from the adverts and their website into our website.

Nenchy – request for translation? No? What will be the main onboarding place as a result of this exposure? Where will Stakingrewards send them?

Fakhul – We need to check certain things with Staking Rewards. But there will be information on their website for how validators can set up on Elastos. The CTA could be sent to the elastos.dev site.

Hwedini – We could set up a new page on the elastos.info site as an information page all about Validators and nodes on Elastos.

Fakhul – Stakingrewards is set up to make it easy to find out what you need on their site alone. It’s there for the layman.

Cassie has zero budget for the elastos.info site so it’s hard to make these kinds of changes. Even when Elavation added the new pages to elastos.info, Elavation needed to request further funding to pay for it. Good suggestions for how to make things easier though..

Stakingrewards will make it easier for anyone new to Elastos to find out about running an Elastos node and, furthermore, learn about our ecosystem. This is the go-to website for blockchain validator node-running information according to our research. We can carefully hone and finalize exactly how it works within our team.

Hwedini – Should we wait for BPoS redelegation before integrating into this?

Fakhul – Yes, but also because the big event isn’t until later in the year (biggest in the validator space) so it would make sense to link to that and give Gelaxy time to make the changes they need to).

Cassie – When the Info Team left the CR Secretariat stepped up and took over the management of the Elastos channels as Digerati. However, the budget available only covers basic maintenance and information sharing. Since the Elavation team created a strategy for PR there has been more consistency – Digital Destiny, etc.. We are accurate and up-to-date on the Elastos channels, but any big changes would need more funding. Digerati would be happy to work with Elavation to revamp the elastos.info website.

AOB

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ACTION ITEMS

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