Cyber Republic Weekly Update 14

CYBER REPUBLIC Weekly Update/Issue 14
Letter to the Community
By Chris Mac
Science fiction is fast becoming science fact. The quality of life for the majority of the
world’s population has improved miraculously over the past hundred years. It might be
hard to imagine, but qualitatively, this is true.
Although a larger number still live in poverty with poor access to education, health care,
and social mobility, the reality is that a greater global proportion are wealthier, healthier,
happier and better educated than ever before. Despite global pollution, corruption,
conflict, and failing political and banking systems, there is much to rejoice in this world;
perception depends on the lens used.
What was only dreamed of a century ago is now not only possible, but accessible to many:
clean water, electricity, radio, healthy food, healthcare, banking, intercontinental air travel,
human rights, voting equality and social mobility—a cashless, electronic, and immediate
value transfer. Admittedly, the advances in science and technology have not all been used
for good especially when men (usually men) seek power through financial conflict or
physical, destructive, aggression. What we can be sure of, however, is that what was once
fiction is now fact.
Achieving these amazing advances has taken determination, persistence, nose-to-thegrindstone
hard work, trial-and-error, collective effort and above all, resilience. Those
expecting overnight transformations, whether technological, social, commercial or
economic, are often disappointed. There will always be set-backs. Revolutionary change
takes time - and it’s best not to claim victory too early.
Bitcoin is only ten years old.
Although conceived nearly two decades ago, Elastos, using the Bitcoin blockchain to
provide digital identity, is only one year old. In that short time, so much has happened:
Elastos developers have produced an SPV Wallet SDK, Elastos merged mining, Elastos
Decentralised ID sidechain service, Elastos Carrier (deployed in a million internet enabled
devices) and Elastos Dittobox. This is all alive today. Following soon are: Elastos PoW +
DPoS consensus, both Token and Smart Contract Sidechain Services, an Elastos storage
system (Hive) and ElaPay for both commercial and individual use. The future for Elastos
and a safer internet appears bright indeed if you look through the lens of technological
accomplishment.
For those who look through the lens of current price (rather than value) or the lens of
advertising effort (rather than prioritized marketing outcomes), or the lens of
centralization (rather than distributed networks), the future may look less certain. Worse
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