Ecosystem Value
1.ELA is the base currency that governs the entirety of the Elastos ecosystem. ELA uses a unique and hybrid PoW/DPoS consensus mechanism where Bitcoins miners generate blocks and Elastos supernodes sign them, working together to secure the ELA blockchain. ELA currently has over 60% of bitcoin’s hash rate with an ATH of 80%, not only making it more secure and expensive to attack than Ethereum but also unable to be forked. Elastos is the first project which successfully addresses the blockchain trilemma issue of security, decentralization, and scalability.
2. ELA powers everything within the Elastos network. Every sidechain on Elastos is tied to the main chain (ELA) in some way. For example, if a sidechain decides to merge mine on top of ELA which is then merged mined on top of BTC, this means that the transaction fees for all the DApps built utilizing these sidechains will have to be paid in ELA. It’s the same thing for the Decentralized Identifier (DID) sidechain that is merged mined with ELA, any transactions recorded on the DID sidechain will need to be paid in ELA as a fee to the miners. All the sidechains are ultimately indirectly protected via the mainchain hash power because you need the mainchain to transfer tokens from sidechain to sidechain or sidechain to another blockchain altogether.
3. The same thing applies to the Ethereum or NEO sidechains on Elastos, they are pegged indirectly to ELA gas fees and are indirectly being protected via the mainchain hash power because you need the mainchain to transfer tokens from sidechain to sidechain or sidechain to another blockchain altogether. For example, we can think of Uniswap forks/clones on the Ethereum sidechain, all the gas and fees will require ELA. This means, the more DApps and the more sidechains get built on top of the Elastos and the more traffic there is on the Elastos ecosystem, the more the network effect grows for ELA. The mainchain is here to be the public ledger for all other side chains. It doesn’t need to scale as it’s storing hashes.
4. DApps will be paying in ELA for the services they’ll be using like Domain name registrations, search engines, page rankings, acquisition of UUIDs for digital assets, etc. They’ll all be using ELA which subsides for bandwidth, IPFS, etc
5. ELA will be the main currency that will be used to reward developers for creating DApps on the Elastos platform.
6. ELA on the main chain is used for peer to peer payments from one person to another.
7. ELA is used to pay for any transaction fees incurred during the peer to peer payments.
8. ELA is used to register for a supernode that takes part in the DPoS consensus of the Elastos Blockchain.
9. Apps built on Elastos can implement their system to process transactions using ELA/SELA is like BTC/SATS(Satoshis). Every successful product on Ethereum, Polkadot, Solana, EOS, Tron, or others could be port over or be recreated to Elastos for more security, decentralization, and scalability utilizing ELA. For real-world applications like Netflix, Instagram, Twitter, and others, Elastos provides a platform for any kind of DApps to be built that can run directly on the device instead of running on top of the blockchain itself like most DApps today. Ethereum side chain has 133,333 times more hash power than that of ETH blockchain and can scale without being centralized. Elastos is not a world computer like ETH, EOS, DOT but rather a network of distributed world computers.
10. As part of the development efforts, around 5 million of ELA were exclusively reserved for the growth of Elastos ecosystem development. These will be given to community members who contribute to the Cyber Republic. Anyone can contribute to the ever-growing ecosystem of Elastos: content creators, users, developers, testers, or leaders. More info is available at https://www.cyberrepublic.org
11. Elastos is an autonomous ecosystem that needs to keep on running. Bitcoin miners who decide to merge mine Elastos are there for profit. There may be even more than 10000 nodes running that help in the main ledger running autonomously with maximum security provided by the bitcoin network. It’s not only the Elastos blockchain ledger that will be running autonomously but also the decentralized peer to peer network that will be running autonomously as well. To keep this wheel running for a long time, there needs to be miners for this as well who can provide supernodes/validators as relays to transfer digital media content like video, music, games, etc. And these miners need to be rewarded in ELA as well.
12. Another way to look at the Elastos platform is to imagine it being a self-sustaining ecosystem. Elastos is building a smart web. A simple example of this is a micro-website (without an IP address) that will be running completely peer to peer. These micro websites need to have domain names, storage service, and any other services websites need. All of these services will be paid for with ELA. One thing to keep in mind is that proceeds from domain name registrations, etc will be used to fund hard drives(such as Hive), supernodes for relaying videos, music, etc. Everyone can provide these services and they’re all helping the ecosystem, so they’ll need to be awarded accordingly. This is a self-running economy so there needs to be a currency with healthy economic inflation that can provide long-term sustainment and an equal growth of the entire ecosystem as a whole.
13. Elastos provides a platform for any kind of DApps to be built that can run directly on the device instead of running on top of the blockchain itself like most DApps today. This creates an incentive to port existing VMs (eg. NEO, Ethereum, etc) from other blockchains to be run on top of Elastos, thereby leading to the true interoperability between all the different kinds of blockchains all running under the same umbrella that provides solutions to three of the most common problems faced today by most blockchains and DApps /scalability, security and decentralization, all without sacrificing anything in the process.
14. ELA is used for governance/council members voting elections and impeachments. Also used for reward when you vote for the supernodes/validators.
15. You’ll need to pay with ELA for securing these digital assets which will utilize the digital assets sidechain.
16. ELA powers all the services offered by Elastos infrastructure. You could use BTC for these but the very code that makes these sidechains possible is directly derived from the main chain and is connected to the main chain closely so all these sidechains are protected by the security of the main chain as well. So, a new currency is needed to power all of this because that’s the only way to ensure that all the services that are offered by Elastos infrastructure work independently of any other currency. We cannot rely to fund the project on BTC or ETH or whatever else. A new currency is needed to govern and manage and support all these services. That is the true value of ELA.
Speculative Value
From a speculator’s perspective, Elastos(ELA) could be like digital black gold (see picture below), a medium of exchanges for data that you own. Thus, a powerful potential store of value. With all the utilities of the ecosystem, ELA would be like the fuel of its new Internet. Imagine if you could buy the Internet and the next one, how much it’s currently worth? 19 Trillion according to Cisco’s CEO. Yes $19,000,000,000,000 and even more. “The Internet of everything will have five to 10 times the impact on society as the Internet itself”
Data is more valuable than oil and gold and could become the store of value of our 4th Industrial Revolution because, for the 21st Century Enterprises, data is the most significant intangible asset, powering new technologies and an ecosystem of third-parties providing everything-as-a-service.
Data in the 21st Century is like Oil in the 18th Century: an immensely, untapped valuable asset. Like oil, for those who see data’s fundamental value and learn to extract and use it, there will be huge rewards. We’re in a digital economy where data is more valuable than ever. It’s the key to the smooth functioning of everything from the government to local companies. Without it, progress would halt. Imagine a total lack of oil worldwide, all the economies will crumble since it is based on transport. Data is the same for the internet, total lack of data will crumble any businesses that base their system on stealing user’s data. Since they do not have a classic market strategy, they will not survive or need to adapt. You can’t create the internet without considering the value of data itself or make an economy without oil for transport. On Elastos, data will become the fuel for Trust between different parties. This Trust will transport the economies where they want to flow. Elastos open the 4th economy revolution, the data economy.
Most people are saying that Bitcoin is digital gold and a store of value, and one day, maybe people will say that Bitcoin is also securing the Internet. The Elastos Internet. Which will become, The Internet of Value/Things/Trust.
Economical Value
Currently, 18,391,212 ELA are in circulation out of 23,084,774 ELA with 4% inflation per year. The voting/staking rewards are 4–5% per year for the moment. The Elastos DAO called the Cyber Republic is currently reviewing the inflation model to change it for something more like Bitcoin’s deflationary model with halving and more. It would give Elastos one of the most powerful coin economics ever created. If we look at the valuation of the Internet of everything from Cisco’s CEO at more than $19,000,000,000,000, Elastos would have a potential value of more than 1 million per coin. I personally would say that $10 000 to $50 000 would be more realistic over the next 20 years. This is obviously not financial advice and it could take decades to achieve this, not saying it will, but I am saying that it technically could. Exactly with the same speculative thoughts of people like Thomas Lee saying that Bitcoin is a potential $1 million to $10 million asset per coin.
For more info: https://www.cyberrepublic.org/suggestion/5f930e4ad7390c00785d64df
Read this article if you want to understand how Elastos works.
