Okay. Hello, everyone. Can everyone hear me okay?
I believe so. There's no otherwise comments on that. Let's get straight stuck in. There's so much to cover today. There's been so much going on.
Today is actually marked by it being the Chinese New Year tomorrow. And so happy new year to everyone who's listening, and it will be celebrating the year of the dragon, which actually is a very significant year and that it represents strong and great leadership.
And so let's, let's take that ethos forward and make this next year a really powerful one for the elastos community.
There's never short of innovation and things going on in our ecosystem. And we're joined today by not only Mark and Jonathan, but we also have guests today which includes Ian and Rob.
So first and foremost, Mark and Johnny, you on and how are you guys doing.
Hi Sasha, I'm on I'm doing great. Thanks, man. Happy New Year to everyone.
So I believe we're, we're calling from all parts of the world today, Johnny, are you with us.
It doesn't seem like just yet, but it looks like he's here he's just a listener at this point.
Okay. Okay, so looking waiting to be added if john you want to jump on as a speaker.
Not just yet. Okay, well let's get stuck in so I think first and foremost, I'd really like to give just some gratitude to the community, and everyone's been really busy buildings.
There's some been some really interesting developments, funny punks, which really have been around for many years, have announced that they are coming in full, full steam ahead in building a cross chain decks.
So they have already funny enough to use they've been very much created since the beginning with the offerings they have.
And since this new cross chain decks announcement which really works with fusion and change, alongside other ecosystems.
They have seen over 49 bunny NFT sold in the last 10 days alone. They have now a price floor of $148 with only really 100 1000 bunnies available, and they have a token which has a million supply, which is completely shot up so it's really exciting
to see the team back see them working hard. And if you head over to their Twitter at bunny cross chain, and you can find out all about the building.
And in parallel to this, there's been the release of the descriptions, which is a inscriptions platform on a last us. Now this is going to be very tied into bell to an enabling smart inscriptions.
So allowing inscriptions from the Bitcoin network to effectively be leveraged on the ESC chain, which allows them to be used on smart contracts.
So since inscriptions has been launched, there's actually been over 43,000 transactions, which is involving around minting hundreds of different inscriptions so you can create all types of different inscriptions on ESC.
And in doing so, there's been hundreds or hundreds of sorry inscriptions and thousands of actual mints so it's gone off to a really great start.
And I think, you know, we'll talk a little bit later about the role of smart inscriptions and we have some partners as well that we can delve into on where this could work.
But it's a really fantastic start there.
Elasti DRM. Now I am founder and CEO of Elasti DRM for the last year and a half, we built a digital rights management system and this is a framework for many different digital assets but our minimal viable product was for video.
So we allow users to encrypt videos into what we call video capsules, and then you can turn this into a way to monetize your data so it's there to protect intellectual property and monetize with the world.
Now we've been live for less than three weeks, there's over 53 video capsules now on the platform.
For me, because we've been and I know for Anders as well and I'm sure for wrong who is our advisor.
We, it's really exciting to see these videos and see this creativity uploaded because it's been a year and a half in hiding and engineering and I think we really understand the challenges which we face and the hard work it took to build this system.
And so now to actually have something live. There's been some incredible and make the creators and talent that's been coming forward. So there's someone called fear who is showcasing his accordion skills, which is such a unique instrument I never even thought about it but actually watching his videos
and seeing him play the accordion. It's such a fascinating intra instrument and it has such a deep tone to it, you kind of, you can imagine how nice it is to actually play as an instrument.
We have Zinn, who has been uploading numerous different piano performances, and actually it's been, you know, really like humbling to see and listen to this and then for 50 cent really you can you can check it out.
And then creators like crypto Rico, you should check out his Twitter. He's a very active YouTuber and he's our first YouTuber to come into elasticity and start not only uploading free content but also monetizing some of his content.
And he's been extremely well received by the community for giving crypto walkthroughs and updates so the feedback we got from him actually was very much that, you know, the amount he can make via elasticity is significantly more than YouTube.
And I think that's what's going to click as time goes on, you know, that this is a new way of monetizing directly with the world. And it's a peer to peer interaction.
And there's money to be made so when we see success stories and then we think about, you know, big names as well using the platform and bringing on more assets.
I'm expecting our library just to keep growing and growing. And there's plenty of fun videos to from pelicans people filming pelicans in their day to day life to an Elinor playing Mortal Kombat with his son and getting his butt worked.
These are free videos, head over to Elasti and check it out. And if you'd like to upload a video, you can either get a Bella in a team or an affiliate link from a Bella holder and just please message on telegram or Twitter, and that can easily be done.
So, there's been lots of innovation going on. And we are introduced today. Well, we have some guests with us. So perhaps john if you're with us and you can jump on, and you'd like to give a little update on what's been going on your side but also introduce our guests and we can get to know everyone on this course.
And john are you with us and everything?
Yeah, that's perfect. Can you find john.
Yeah, great. So, I guess, you know, one of the things I wanted to do is just like outline the, the program around how do we use belt to and start to build projects going forward.
So, I think we've been working quite hard in the last couple of months trying to pivot away from, you know, our previous business development strategy towards, you know, not just belt to but how does belt to link with the smart web.
And to do that we've had a number of different, you know, you know, really quite exciting projects that we've got come on.
I think one of the things, you know, about doing this is these are people that are really doing things like experimenting quite the sharp end of inscriptions and or belt to etc so the issue is, they're not going to be like household names so I wanted to kind of make
that clear because it's really about how do we, how we're pushing up entirely new market, and then we'll be the first people into that market.
And our big goal is that we hope to, you know, in the July timeframe, you know, make quite a big splash and debut around the belt to system. And what we want is to have projects that are really using the products live at that time.
So I think that, you know, I want to just give that context, because I know, I know, everyone's like really, you know, keen to hear about these partnerships but it's a lot of hard work, kind of building this stuff right in the next.
And, you know, if I'm, if I'm being really candid, we haven't always done this around launches so it's very important that we made sure that we have people that are, you know, pioneering this stuff and on our sides.
So, just very quickly, just jumping into some of it.
I think one of the things is that, you know, music is pretty obviously one of the major opportunities for us so one of the projects we've been working with is with a business called beef farm, who are basically essentially they've are building a social fine network for the music
And the idea is that we work with Ella city and try to connect on that on that project.
What we're doing there the city into being able to offer music so one of the areas we're looking at for the first launch of this is obviously first of all minting beat has an inscription, which has been going really well so far.
We've done any marketing and we've already got, you know, 70 or so different owners of beat on the on the smart inscriptions.
But the really important thing is what we're going to do with that project is focusing on super fans.
So super fans being people who are able to, you know, not just contribute to buying the inscription, but are totally focused on being in a network of decentralization that will energize the product.
So the first mark I'm going to probably focus there is K-pop.
So K-pop is great because obviously within Korea, it's a very big thing and it's a very close relationship between the fans and between the different players in that in that system.
But, you know, what's great is it then kind of transfers out of Korea into a global audience or certainly in Europe and the US and other parts of Asia that follow K-pop.
So that first project, which is Beat Farm, we've just signed an agreement to build with them on that and the project will, as I say, it's already gone live on the smart inscriptions.
But the idea is that we kind of can close in on the K-pop contracts by, you know, within March and then there'll be a series of announcements about different people that are using it.
And if I had to boil it down and Sash will tell me off for this because it's not exactly right, but really what we're doing is putting music on Bitcoin in this context.
So the reason why Sash will disagree with me is we're actually putting it on ESC and then using Bitcoin to pay for it.
But really the kind of core story is we're putting music on Bitcoin, which is really, really cool.
So that's the kind of Beat Farm announcement and we'll make that announcement probably in the next couple of weeks.
We just need to kind of obviously it's important that we sign up the artists and the talent and it's important that we have the first working models of the smart inscription going for that at that point in time.
I guess the second thing, second project that I wanted to share and we're talking probably about a half dozen in this or a dozen in this sector that we're shortlisting is one of them is around travel.
Travel is kind of looking like a really interesting area for Web3. You may have seen the traveler announcement early this week and we are looking at how we can integrate traveler, particularly with EllaBox and the ability to
to actually create what's referred to, you know, what we all know as Deepin, so decentralized physical infrastructure.
And that relationship has led us into about four or five other really interesting Web3 travel businesses.
I'm obviously traveler of the most established brand in that sector.
But we're also talking to a company called DeTravel, which is like a Airbnb for Web3, which is really cool.
But one that I'm pretty excited about again is, and this comes from Ian who's been helping us, is with a company called Wunderlust who are looking at what's called extreme travel.
They already have a Web2 application in that area where basically if you go to see amazing places, you take pictures of them.
And essentially it's about how do you kind of take those images and create memories online, so create inscriptions around that memory and then kind of resell that memory within the community of people that like doing that kind of cool stuff.
So there's a business called Wunderlust who are pretty exciting, I think.
And we're really going to help put on the map the whole idea of Web3 travel.
And as I say, we've got three or four other partners in that area that we're talking to who are really pushing things forward.
So that's all pretty exciting, to be honest.
One of the things that I wanted to stress with this focus is it's about how do we create kind of new experiences for people.
And we're doing things that are new.
So, you know, appreciate all the help in kind of promoting and trying to understand what we're doing with inscriptions and then with Bell2 because it all leads into a Bell2 system.
So if you take the putting Bitcoin and putting music onto Bitcoin, all of that is about how do you create a new marketplace essentially for music around Bitcoin.
So I know some of the things we talk about are quite complex, but it's very important that we deliver against that.
Yeah, so I don't know if there are any questions on that, on some of those projects and, you know, people want to ask more about it.
I'm open to hear advice right now.
Anyone who does want to jump in, just put your hand up and we can either take a question or you can jump in and ask.
It's worth noting as well, Beat, which John talked about the Beat Farm, is actually the most popular inscription on inscriptions right now.
And so there's been over nine thousand nine hundred transactions minting Beat and only nine percent so far has been minted because it has a very low mint that you can do.
So there's only a thousand mints per limit per mint.
So people are minting away at it and slowly but surely it's getting to this total supply.
So if you want to experience and have some fun there, head over to inscriptions, mints and beats and just know that there's going to be some cool announcements coming up for that project.
And I think if there's no questions, we can see Ian is here as well.
Ian, are you are you able to accept you want to jump in as bit as well?
It'd be great to do some introductions there if you accept. I believe there should be a request from the Elastor side.
And so whilst that goes on, I think what's really exciting was having trouble connecting.
So OK, let's see if you can. OK, yeah.
Yeah, I found it in the last I can try and try and support on that.
We hope you can get that sorted. I think we can talk about one of the next things, which is right now, I've got Twitter in front of me.
I'm going to click post. And we're just announcing in this moment that the Bell two dot org website is now live.
And so there's the be layer to Twitter that handle that's just been created.
If you head over and follow, but you'll also now see that there's a post just gone live, which announces the Bell two website.
So over the last two weeks, really, we've been developing this website from a draft that we did before.
And really, it showcases what the visions about and it gives an opportunity to learn a little bit more about Bell two and also in the upcoming weeks.
Really, there's six weeks left until the end of Q1.
And that's our deadline for getting the initial proof of proof of concept live.
And so in doing that, we'll get to actually demo a very basic version of Bell two and then really Q2 moves into the decentralization of relayers.
So that's all about enabling enabling any stakeholders to become Bell two nodes and to become one, you have to stake ELA.
But what you get is the ability to pass a Bitcoin proof, which is generated from a transaction into a smart contract because Bell two really is about enabling smart contracts to run on top of Bitcoin.
And in this scenario, we can allow ELA relayers, those that stake ELA to basically manage those proofs and hand them into smart contracts, which is a really exciting development and Q2 to Q3 will all be about adding that functionality,
which takes us into Q3 and four, which is then all about the the ability to actually run, run dApps on Bell two and on the protocol deploying on the Elastos smart web, but running on top of Bitcoin through this new protocol.
So there's lots of exciting developments there. And perhaps, Mark, this is a really good opportunity.
If you'd like to give some some more technical development updates, we can talk about kind of what's actually been done to date in the last kind of month.
And then where we're heading moving forward.
I think Mark might have dropped off.
Okay, so it looks like Mark has dropped off.
So in that case, let me let me give a little update.
So really, there's been some some really interesting updates. Some of it's a little technical, but we'll try and breeze through it.
And so we basically successfully completed the development of a verification circuit using what is Cairo is a programming language on Bitcoin.
So this is really a pivotal step forward, as it allows us to basically enable what's called scores signatures, which is a secure way to interact with Bitcoin.
And so when a Bitcoin transaction takes place, the goal here is that a zero knowledge proof is created that verifies that transaction happened, and then it gets passed across.
Mark, I've just seen that you've joined in.
Yeah. Okay, let me let me pass it on to you.
So absolutely. So yeah, a lot has been accomplished by the development team.
If you recall, just a quick review on on the basic roadmap. The first couple of months, January to February, the goals were to lay the foundations.
Basically, the goal to establish some of the core technical groundwork focusing on developing some of those essential protocols and verification circuits, then followed by the integration integration and testing phase from February to March,
and then eventually the expansion and outreach phase.
And then it looks as though a lot of this should all be coming together in regards to actually being able to utilize decentralized apps and some of the cool things that we hope will come about with Bell to buy the Jewish frame if everything works out okay.
But some of what specifically has occurred since we talked last so the team has successfully developed verification circuit for snore signatures using Cairo version zero, which capitalizes on the security and efficiency advantage of snore signatures over some of the traditional
types of signatures that also verification contract for elliptical curve signature based transaction proof has been finalized which ensures compatibility with current transition mechanisms and establishes a base for advanced verification processes.
The team has also made a strategic decision to upgrade to Cairo version one and commence the development of the ZK BTC VM.
So this is this upgrades designed to support all Bitcoin operation codes, enabling the handling of any type of Bitcoin transaction, thereby future proofing the system.
The implementation phase for a decentralized permission list ZK proof service has also been initiated, offering an incentive driven ecosystem for transaction verification through a proof service contract.
And lastly, to demonstrate the efficiency and reliability of their system a user friendly demo is being conceptualized, allowing users to verify the authenticity of Bitcoin transactions via the website, effectively showcasing the technologies practical applications.
There's also a lot of stuff that they're working on in the immediate future. They're going to focus on developing further the ZK BTC VM core system.
Really what they view to be is their backbone of the backbone of Bell to that they're going to attempt to achieve better still building and reduce fees through SegWit transactions.
They're committing to continuous improvements of the verification contracts for increased robustness and security.
They're broadening the system to include new protocols and extending verification services such as ordinals and BRC 20 protocols, and they're also targeting proof compression to handle multiple transactions simultaneously which should optimize the system performance.
Definitely a lot of developmental road work progress has been made. Briefly, why I have the floor. I'd also like to congratulate some of the community members who are really crushing it in the telegram and on Twitter so a Dashi, Luca and spark.
I mean you guys all well deserved.
Got some some ELA or Ella this past week or so so congratulations to y'all and appreciate all the work that everyone in the community is doing to to improve our ecosystem adoption.
With all that sash I believe I'll pass it back to you at least for the time being I do have something to talk about a little bit later.
And yeah, lots, lots of again, the last development update we gave, we were ahead of schedule. So things are looking really good.
Things are continuing to progress from the dev side there's over 10 engineers working on too. So it's a serious endeavor. And, you know, again, from my side understanding elastic DRM and knowing like the process of engineering, you do get challenges that come up.
I mean, engineering in itself is all about problem solving. How do you error correct your way to a solution. And there's lots of unknowns in that path and then there's lots of challenges and you fix.
But, you know, in this process that we're on so far and everyone's feeling confident challenges that have emerged have been addressed and you know small pivots which take place.
Natural and part of the process. So this is an exciting, you know, development that's, you know, taking us to what I think will be a very strong initial proof of concept.
And it extends in different ways. So if you check out the bell to website, you can see some of the ideas we have in mind and explore that.
And one of the things that we are, you know, exploring for bell to is the idea of smart inscriptions.
And so I think recently there was an article that was put out. It was actually put out on the elasticity telegram written by john and Anders, which really delved into what inscriptions are, you know, to understand how they work, and then thinking
about what smart inscriptions could be. And john, I don't know. Do you want to just give a quick explanation on how you view inscriptions their significance and how they really can play a crucial role in becoming smart, using the bell to framework.
Yeah. And can everyone hear me.
We can hear you john. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, basically, the point with inscriptions is that it's an innovation within the Bitcoin system.
You know, not everyone is fully on board with it and that, you know, we have to be really aware of that.
In fact, you know, if you were entirely a Bitcoin maxi, you would claim it's a denial of service attack on the system.
But it seems like that debate has moved on from, you know, where we were sort of mid last year.
And I think it's really important to explain how what we're doing with Ella actually completely negates that that concern and fear, right.
Because what we are trying to do is actually protect the integrity of the Bitcoin network when we do this.
And that's, that's really important that that we're very clear about how we argue that.
So just taking a couple of steps back if you if you've seen the materials is that there's a couple of really important points, which is there's a difference between an ordinal and and and an inscription.
So essentially, the way it works is that every Bitcoin, as everyone probably knows, is divided into 100 million satoshis, which is a lot.
And each satoshi has the ability, has a numbering system, which is the ordinal system.
And that's basically allocated on a first come, first serve basis.
So you don't necessarily when you're making an inscription need to take the full amount, obviously, but it kind of makes sense to do that, to be honest.
And then what happens with with the inscription is basically that is the satoshi ID is you add your data to that inscription.
And then what that means is that you're able to actually make that inscription smart.
And this is where what we're doing. And that's just is really important, because what we can do is actually add a smart contract to that inscription.
And what that means is when we are creating, we're defining, you know, we're the first people to define this, although it's already spread up noticed it's already all over Twitter, a smart inscription.
And essentially what that happens is that there's a bridge built between between that satoshi ID and ESC.
And on that on that connection, we're able to build a smart contract.
So we're not interfering with the performance and activity of the Bitcoin network when we do that.
And that's one of the really important points that talks to this fear about, you know, basically a denial of service attack, which totally would completely screw up the Bitcoin network.
It means that we are able to allow this process to happen in a way that protects the integrity of Bitcoin, because all of the clever stuff is actually happening on the AC.
And then that's bridge bridge back to to the Bitcoin network. And that that's I know it seems quite a technical thing, but that revolutionizes Bitcoin.
It really means that we can do things. You can do things with Bitcoin without without basically compromising the network that it would have been, you know, you couldn't imagine doing them certainly a couple of years ago.
And the really exciting thing is that, you know, one of the next steps when we build into Bell to which is how do we then how do we then kind of sort of try to really put a full system behind that process, which is when we start to build relayers.
And this will happen between not between the AC, but between the main chain and Bell to so that you're able to bring all of the security of Bitcoin to that to then to this new system on all of it, actually 50%.
And, and that, again, is like really important because once we start to integrate the VM technologies and the we can then bring that actually even into an Ethereum environment.
So if you have followed what I'm saying, this is a massive game changer, right? It's really, really important and it and it totally relies on the role of ELA to act as, you know, essentially the the token that that guarantees the way the relay works.
So that's just a very short, very quick introduction to why inscriptions are important, why what we're doing right now is is key, but also how it will lead into that that that future for Bell to and a roll up now.
Other protocols that you may hear and you will see them literally we're going to get thousands of them in the next two or three months, saying that they're they're led to solutions.
The differences that they don't have the whole of the smart web infrastructure that we built over five years. And, you know, that's really, really important.
Follow the logic of what I'm saying. It's great to have a protocol. But what we are bringing is a is a fully integrated smart web that supports that system.
So, yeah, that's that's the kind of very top level on how it will work.
There are a lot of engineering challenges, obviously, some of which Mark ran through.
And there are, you know, different actually more we do the more the more you see opportunities just opening up for using this.
And I guess that's one of the challenges is for us and try not to get too distracted by all of the amazing things we can do.
So when I was talking about the music example earlier, you know, that's that that's a really specific example of how we can give something absolutely new to a super fan who happens to be using Bitcoin that really you can't you wouldn't be able to get in any other form of commercial transaction.
And then how you can then if you think about smart web use that within appear to be a network to create a really amazing experience for for the for the community that believes in believes in that product.
In this case, K-pop. But actually, that then can be taken to apply to pretty much any other commercial transaction that you might be interested in.
So, yeah, I'm really happy to take questions on this because I know I know it's very kind of new and it's very, you know, it's quite shocking sometimes for to hear that you can do these things essentially with the cryptocurrency because we're moving into what's called real world assets.
That will be the next stage of what we can do with this is really kind of how do you then apply that to issues like assets like property?
Absolutely. You can apply what I've just spoken about to really quite big things.
So musics, we're focusing on music and entertainment to start with because those are just things that users will respond to immediately.
But the actual application to the whole of the idea of real world assets is massive.
And that will be probably will probably focus more on finances as a second stage and then it's big.
So as you said, you know, there's 100 million satoshis in one Bitcoin and there's obviously 21 million Bitcoin.
So we have, you know, the ability to inscribe value into the smallest units of Bitcoin.
And what Bell too is building to offer is the ability to with the smallest unit, every Satoshi generate zero knowledge proofs, which can then be fed into smart contracts.
So you could have like an inscription, which is the right to house ownership on Bitcoin, which when it's transferred to a new owner, it creates a zero knowledge proof that feeds into a layer two with a dedicated smart contract,
which completely settles a host of different terms, which are more functional and smart beyond just the basic inscription on Bitcoin.
And it's, you know, this feeds into every kind of sector. And, you know, when I think about the DRM side, one of the areas we're exploring is, you know, we have we have a digital asset ledger.
So when you encrypt and upload your video to to really smart web, what you're doing is you're creating an ERC 721 token, which is on a, it's almost like an index.
It's loved on what we call the digital capture ledger. But then you create an accompanying smart contract, which has the access, the royalty and the distribution tokens inside.
So if the user experience can get good enough where you could deploy your video and you could actually in the same transaction or in the same wallet, inscribe the actual assets on the digital asset instead of the digital asset ledger, the digital capture ledger,
if you inscribe it on the Bitcoin, you then can have the smart contracts all running on the actual layer two that you're anchored in Bitcoin.
And it's interesting new kind of innovations that you can do and why Bitcoin fundamentally because it is the most secure blockchain in the world.
It's the longest track record because it's the first it's being recognized as a commodity.
Unlike everything else, which still has scrutiny under security laws. And really, you know, my opinion is it represents the new global financial system.
And so we're going and as kind of John said, we are going to see thousands, definitely dozens into the hundreds in the next two to three months of layer two projects kind of emerging all with different twists.
And I do believe we have a have a head start and that we've done so far.
Sorry, guys, I dropped off for a sec. But to the point, there will be lots of innovation coming on Bitcoin in the coming months.
There's huge funds emerging. There's all these kind of exciting solutions that are coming forward.
And I just have to remind everyone that Elastos has been merged minds with Bitcoin since 2018.
You know, it has a head start in a relationship with this blockchain ecosystem.
And and so, you know, it has over 50% of Bitcoin security. So miners are helping secure the main chain.
So you lay almost as a layer to coin as it's almost like the silver, it's a reserve asset, which you can hold.
But then now we're we're enhancing that relationship with Bell to and allowing smart contracts now to run on top of Bitcoin.
So we have a good relationship already with the ecosystem. And really, it was in Singapore last year for token 2049, where we hosted a Bitcoin layer two conference.
And it was there when some real thought leadership started to emerge around what a new layer two solution could look like.
And I do believe some of the brightest minds have kind of come together to really find a solution, which is what we're building.
So watch this space. One thing I will say is that there was recent news about a bell to inscription, which is a BRC 20 token.
Now it created mixed feelings within the community. It's worth addressing because I think there's concerns about where it came from being that it was anonymous.
And we've been anyone can mint an inscription on the Bitcoin blockchain. And as you'll see on a scriptions, you also have to mint as a community those inscriptions.
So as to date, they've all been minted.
And there are, you know, leaderships and members within the community who have been a part of that.
And I think what we need to try and do is show more transparency in how that was minted.
And there's been talks about how the bell to inscription as a digital artifact will be dropped to the community.
And so there is an air drop plan coming. And really, the goal here, again, is to use ELA relayers, those that stake ELA, to showcase what a smart inscription is.
And I think the goal here now is with this bell to inscription is to showcase how you can use Bitcoin inscription, in this case, bell to to make, let's say, payments on a layer two mechanism and using ELA relayers.
So in a way, it's an in house way of basically showing how this can all work. But understandably, there's been concerns about, you know, what's the ELA's role?
Is it is it in danger here? And we've had many conversations on boardfalls and with, you know, with everyone who's a part of the project and there was a collective decision to support bell to inscription, but also to make sure that there isn't any, you know, any
crossovers with what ELA's role is on bell to and which really is to, in order to become a relay, you need to stake ELA.
And that allows you to earn Bitcoin. And, you know, one of the roles you could do as a relay in this instance is leverage the bell to inscription to move it into a layer two to do, let's say, a payment mechanism.
So I hope there's some clarity there. But what we will do is and what we've been reassured as well is that, you know, their plan is to create an airdrop event and to really make an announcement to the community and perhaps what that will look like.
So the plan is next week, looking like at the start of this next week, there'll be a cyber republic proposal.
The cyber republic is the Elastos Dow and 12 community elected members nearly voted in using ELA main chain assets, which emerged my Bitcoin, and they have the opportunity to vote yes or no.
If eight out of 12 say yes, consensus is made. We'll upload a suggestion on what the potential airdrop plan for bell to inscriptions can look like, and we'll leave it for a week or so.
We'll have a council meeting on Wednesday with the actual CRC council, and it's open to be tweaked, changed, and ideally, we find a way in which we can settle an airdrop plan, and then looking like it will be early March where this will happen.
And it's based on a snapshot that would have been taken mainly probably last year, it's already it already will have taken place the snapshot, and it will reward all the community members who participated in gaps like elastic glide and really been a part of the ecosystem today.
So, and hope you know we can get more clarity on this, I think discussion is so important so continue to discuss use the telegram to talk about this. I know, leaders from all the different kind of corners of Elastos have been giving their opinions, but hopefully it's a way
to kind of also invigorates some excitement to as this new asset that's in the elastic ecosystem, but not one that actually compromises ELA's utility in this vision, which, as I said it's got a relationship since 2018 a long standing relationship.
And if we really think about the future of Elastos, if we look at the internet and we say Elastos is the smart web, and we must recognize that it wasn't Tim, Tim Berners-Lee that built the internet, it was he can set the standards and the protocols to start the worldwide web.
But then ultimately it was Microsoft it was Apple it was those that went out and raised money from venture capital firms or from their, you know, their networks, and then they innovated new features through market driven products that created the internet that we see
today that is so good. So, it's enterprise solutions that ultimately will drive Elastos forward. And so, you know, I think there's important to establish that Bell2 as a protocol is, you know, trying to build a kind of enterprise solution that leverages ELA relayers to enable Bitcoin to work with smart contracts, and then
unlike Elacity, and then we've obviously got, you know, talked about Beat Farm, we have, you know, Rob joining us even today, I think he'll be chatting shortly, and other kind of projects going on and really, we're the ones that will drive this forward.
So, you know, I'm excited for Elastity as well and how we will raise capital in the coming really months actually I think we're in that position.
And, you know, I hope many more will in the years ahead where we will just all start driving this vision for us so next week will be an airdrop plan and on cyber Republic.
I don't know before we drop before I pass over to mark. John, I can see that Rob is with us. It doesn't look like Ian has managed to get in as a speaker yet, but would you like to just introduce Rob and then maybe we just talk a little bit on that side.
Hi there. Can you hear me.
Yeah, no. So, and as, as Sasha said, all of this is great as an enterprise solution but if it. If we can't be sure of people's identity and integrity within the system.
Then the whole system potentially becomes flawed, and that's that's, you know, kind of one of our number one priorities is thinking that through.
I've had the pleasure of working with Rob for a number of years.
He was one of the founders of open banking in the UK established first system for open banking which is a way, basically, of being able to connect between all of the banks in the UK and any, any market that signed up to open banking regulation.
And we've been doing a lot of thinking and work about how do we, how do we make sure that we have this integrity or identity.
As we deploy these systems so, Rob if I wanted to hand over to you, do you want to talk about what you, what you're doing with the metaverse bank, but also importantly how you know some of the potential for this to actually solve that that crucial crucial
problem around identity in the system.
So, just very brief background, I've been working in payments for over 20 years.
And prior to that and continuing in the music industry.
The very first payment system I built was called music pay, and the concept behind that was collecting any revenue that was due to particular musician or band, and then splitting that up to all the people that would do a percentage of it.
And there are many, many of many, many, many people get involved in that and paying it out instantly that was launched in 2003.
And been waiting for the market to catch up to do that. So, we've been doing some interesting things we were the first people to go live with open banking payments back in 2018.
And that's a product that's really waiting for the market to to adopt it.
But it's really quite amazing what you can do with open banking in conjunction with other systems.
So, the very first customer for it was, in fact, a German energy company for whom we launched a coin.
And because these are massive cover making difficult people buy crypto. At that time, we gave them open banking. So, the very first use of open banking was to enable the purchase of crypto.
They didn't do a very successful launch on it, but the technology worked absolutely fine.
And we've got a whole bunch of other technologies around this space.
And one of the things that we can do now is we can take money in open banking and convert it automatically to an encrypted digital asset, move it around, pay other people.
And then we can, again, using open banking, we're able to send it back to the physical world and make payments in standard banking processes.
So, the world of payments and banking is changing fast anyway, but it's about to take another leap, I think.
So, when you can actually, as we can now, convert in and out of crypto in the middle of a transaction, and at the same time you can do anything else that you want.
So, for example, you want to do some KYC, you want to do identity checks, and so on. That can all be incorporated in the process.
So, we have a system that effectively connects any software to any software, any payment system to any payment system anywhere in the world.
So, we're able to do things like the on and off ramp for crypto, obviously now.
And one of the areas is still music.
We can automate payments to artists so that they don't have to go through any industry processes anymore.
So, the music industry is, to say the least, a bit behind the times, and whilst the musicians are always on the very edge of new technologies and so on, the industry in itself isn't.
So, I originally worked as an A&R guy for Warner Brothers, so signing new bands and so on, and an A&R director for a small French label called Carere.
I sent my own label up and so on, and I was always pushing the technology boundaries so that we could actually make the whole thing a lot more efficient.
Right now, the music industry still works on a Victorian business model and is absolutely right for a massive transformation, not at least what bigs are doing, but many other things as well.
And one of the biggest things, my daughter's a musician, she's a singer, and I'm looking at things to help her protect her assets so that she doesn't get into fights with the industry like many, many other artists have done.
So, a lot of things around connectivity, interaction with multiple systems, and payments. So, if there's any questions, happy to answer them.
Hey, Rob. Obviously, I appreciate that we've also had a relationship in and out over the last year, and it's so exciting, all the stuff you've been doing with open banking.
How would you describe open banking in comparison to traditional banking? What is the difference?
Well, speed, efficiency, cost, security are all much better.
So, safer, faster, cheaper. Really, you know, you can move money around the world in seconds now.
You find, unfortunately, that people put blocks in the way sometimes, mainly banks, because they've got a vested interest, but now it's much, much easier to move money around, except when you get stuck in the ML type processes.
So, yeah, it's safer, faster, cheaper.
Safer, faster, cheaper. You know, the banks are mandated in the UK and in the UK not to charge for their open banking services. So, the government mandates.
In theory, they shouldn't be starting to charge, although they're trying at the moment. So, for example, they have a concept called VRPs, available repetitive payments, which is effectively a direct debit.
But the banks are trying to charge a premium on that, and so it keeps getting put back and put back.
But we've got a new concept which solves that problem, and again, adds another layer of security. So, we'll be launching that in a few months' time.
So, yeah, I think it just takes away so many of the problems that traditional banking has, speed and efficiency, or just a joke in an existing banking system.
How long has it taken an electron to move? Anyway, does that answer your question?
It does, yeah. So, I guess the core issue is banks are very siloed and closed off, and this actually opens a more interoperable financial layer where people can actually settle with each other on a global scale without all the headaches.
Yeah, well, that comes into play with the Metaverse Bank. So, the concept of the Metaverse Bank is you can buy anything, paying with anything.
And so, whatever asset you have can be translated into an encrypted digital asset, and then you can trade that, and you can trade it instantly, globally. So, we have all of those concepts and proofs already in play.
And Sash, to add to this point on identity, I think you shared a piece. You can buy a passport identity now for $15, right? So, a traditional KYC is good, but if we're looking at a world where we're looking at Bell 2, where we're really running through batch processing,
and you've got lots of false identities in that system, then that's the vulnerability, right? And one of the things with what Rob can do with open banking is, and what we've picked up on, based on the Trinity work, is how do you create a verified credential so that, okay, you can easily copy a passport,
but it's very hard once you've got a fully integrated system to copy someone's whole life history. And even if you have 100 people working in India trying to do that, it's not easy if the system has intelligence and has a history that you can get through an open banking mechanism, right?
It becomes very hard to actually make up a whole new identity when you can just say, well, show me your open banking footprint, because it will be evident that that's a false identity, right?
So that, I know it seems like quite a bit of a tangent, but it's absolutely relevant to what we're trying to do, because we have to keep false identity out of processes we're building, because otherwise someone can become a bad actor within a system.
And that's so, it's really important that we build that into the smart web solution. And that's kind of what we get through Rob's technologies in space. Now, obviously, there are other ways of doing it, and we are working on, you know, as you say, zero knowledge proofs.
This actually reinforces zero knowledge proofs, because the problem with a zero knowledge proof is, if you've got a false identity, and zero knowledge proof can work, right? So it's actually removing a false identity from that, which is important.
Yeah, no, no, I completely, I completely understand there. And to reference, it was recently that a project started offering, and I think it was for, it was either 15 or $50, but it was the ability to create an AI generated passports, which then can pass KYC requirements on things like, you know, Binance, and these cryptocurrency exchanges.
So, so, you know, there's a real challenge with the three big technologies, robotics, automation, and, and AI. And really, this is AI, you know, coming in and creating new challenges, but, you know, we don't want a dark web, or we don't want otherwise a kind of 50% of the internet today really is bots.
So we don't want to web a smart web, which is, you know, the same kind of level of bots, we need these kind of protective screen mechanisms. So I think, yeah, everything Rob's doing with the metaverse bank is just incredible.
And if it's bringing in verifiable credentials to create a kind of safer environment, I think that's incredible. And I know wrong would be very interested in this too, because we've had quite extensive conversations recently about how we can enable payment layers.
And also we've worked, you know, on this partnership last year and how we can formulate this with the metaverse bank, but really, can we use open banking to make payments.
So it feels like the internet today, but everything ultimately gets settled in the back end using blockchain technology, and when we can start to deliver that kind of that kind of solution via our smart web technology.
I think, you know, that's where we differentiate ourselves from the kind of traditional web three space, which is very, you know, it's complicated for a lot of users, and it's also very, yeah, still techie.
Well, for your for real world adoption, we need someone either paying with their PayPal or paying with their bank, and then there being a system that basically triggers the response on smart contracts in the back end, and the delivery is made.
But the benefit is everything was then tracked and logged on chain, and you get the distribution of payments to all parties and you get the automation that blockchain kind of here to promise.
So, I really is super exciting the recent broader announcement made with the metaverse bank with the last dose, and how we can bring all those technologies together.
So, you know, Rob really exciting is there anything in particular that you're most excited about.
I think the, the most exciting thing is how we're able to connect the real world with the digital world. So, you know, we can connect real banking and moving real money with the benefits of integrated KYC and so on.
But also, as an interim step, for example, we have a process for the construction industry where money is automatically converted into secure tokens moved around within that system.
And then when, for example, somebody has completed some work as part of a contract, it automatically pays out that amount of work to into a normal banking account.
And it's all fully automated.
So that that takes away all the graft that occurs when main contractors, for example, tell the client a different story in terms of contract costs and so on.
And when they did delay payments to to the people that actually do the work. So, that's sort of a real world application and that's $100 billion problem in the US alone.
That's sort of capability to to just short circuit.
A lot of delays and problems and inefficiencies.
It is massive opportunity to to secure transactions and, and, and speed them up. So yeah, that's pretty exciting.
Super exciting. Yeah, thanks, Rob. Honestly, yeah, it's such a such an important way to come in and that your expertise there so much.
So I don't I don't know with time how much we can go further on the topic. I don't know if I don't believe Ian has joined as a speaker.
And I don't know if that's still problematic. If it isn't, we can move on to the next topic.
Yeah, let's do that. I think I think it's difficult. Okay. Well, in that case, we won't take too much more time. I appreciate we've gone past, but really, there's been some strategic developments as well.
And Mark, perhaps you'd like to give an update surrounding the conference, the upcoming conference that we're looking to work to and what's going on there.
Okay, I can see that Mark's actually not in the chat. So I think he might have dropped off. Let me give a quick update.
So over the last two months, we've been developing a relationship with the Bitcoin 2024 conference.
And this really is the leading Bitcoin conference in the world. They've grown substantially over the years, mostly been in Miami.
And this year, they'll be actually in Nashville, Tennessee. They're very selective about who they work with, because as you can imagine, you get lots of projects who want to come on, and especially ones that want to promote their tokens, who in most cases don't really have any affiliation with Bitcoin.
So it was around about two months ago that we started initial conversations. Mark's been leading. Mark, you're on. Do you want to jump in as a speaker and you can take over?
Really, Mark's been leading this relationship, and they came back to us after vetting everything, seeing that we've been merged mine with Bitcoin, and then they did a deep dive in Bell 2, and they have accepted our ability to play a part in the upcoming conference.
So really, there's an opportunity for us to get involved now. The doors have been opened. We would participate through some form of sponsorship.
But the sponsorship means that in whichever level we pick, we can get on the ground. And the biggest opportunity actually is to get a chance to speak at the conference.
So it can be anything from a low-level sponsorship, to having our own stand and stool, to actually aiming. They can't promise it, but aiming to get on an actual panel or have a talk as well, and really start to talk about our relationship with Bitcoin and what we're trying to achieve through the Elastos smart web.
So I appreciate, Mark, you're still a listener, so I'll just carry on. But if you jump in, please, please take over. There will be a proposal coming, a cyber republic proposal on what's kind of happened here.
We're hoping that there can be conversation around this to what level of the community comfortable.
We have been assured that the Elastos Foundation would support half of the amount that we pick and the other half, whether the CRC or sponsors would like to get involved, that can be open to discussion.
But I think we will use the CRC certainly as a channel to talk about this and have discussion and then hopefully look to move forward in a meaningful way.
But do share your thoughts. What do you think about being a part of the Bitcoin conference and really starting to, you know, recently we just had a big rebrand of the Elastos logo.
It ties much more into the Bitcoin branding. And I think it's clear that we are moving closer to forming a relationship with what is the largest ecosystem in the world.
I mean, it's over twice the size of Ethereum, the amount of value that just sits on Bitcoin that really is dormant today, that we're trying to create utility through using Bell2.
You know, we are here to unlock this value and create all of these smart functionality.
So what an amazing opportunity if we can get on stage, if we can talk and engage with people and really show leadership in this field as, you know, the leading layer two solution for Bitcoin.
And so that will come up soon. But keep an eye out and hopefully that will give an opportunity. Mark, just seeing you jumped in this co-host. Sorry, I might have just read everything, but please add anything.
Can everyone hear me okay now?
Okay, great. So first off, Sash, thanks for taking the lead on that.
Just wanted to basically explain, about four years ago, I had my first opportunity to attend a Bitcoin conference. And if any of you have ever attended, you'll realize it's an amazing opportunity to engage with Bitcoin influencers and thought leaders.
You know, the environment is just, it's amazing. Everybody's vibing and everybody's excited about not only Bitcoin, but blockchain opportunities.
And I think one of the biggest things that I see, I mean, people comment on my Twitter or and even in the telegram of wind marketing and basically with what Sash has been talking about lately, earlier in the session, how technically our Bell 2, our layer two solution is actually kind of the head of the curve.
And we really have a lot to offer the fact that we've been merged mine with Bitcoin since 2018 and some of the advancements that are taking place over the next several months and actually line up really well with the time of the conference, which is going to be in July.
And so we're really trying to figure out with the technology that we have and advancements that we are making.
You'll see there's a lot of layer two solutions that are popping up and they have a lot of hype around them.
And I believe that Elastos, unfortunately, and Bell 2, at least through the present time in comparison, don't have much of that. And I think it's deserving of some of that.
And really, I believe being at the conference will allow us to just really improve that to be visible and to be able to network.
And it's an opportunity that really doesn't come along for tokens.
Like if you go to the Bitcoin conference website right now, you'll see all of the sponsors.
None of them have coins, even kind of indirectly associated with them.
And we really had to go through a lot of vetting in order for this project to be accepted and it has been accepted.
And so the next steps are for us to present basically a suggestion that will hopefully be then turned into a proposal.
This coming Wednesday, we're going to discuss some of the information regarding the proposal on our biweekly CRC meeting.
And in the meantime, though, the suggestion should be up either later today or tomorrow.
I really encourage the community to give feedback.
I know one of the biggest concerns for proposals that have large funding associated with them is that, you know, could that have negative impacts on the price of the the Ella token or coin.
And with that being said, I do believe this is such an amazing opportunity for our ecosystem that I want to do all I can to alleviate some of the community concerns with the price of the Ella token potentially being
dumped. So rather than it being dumped, what my proposal is, and you'll see this in the suggestion, is that if the CRC approves to cover 50 percent of the cost and the Lasos Foundation is already approved to cover 50 percent of the cost,
rather than take that Ella and sell it for Bitcoin to then pay for the sponsorship.
My recommendation is for me to take my own personal Bitcoin, pay for the conference and then have the Ella's be repaid to me.
But then I would lock it in to a contract, a staking contract for 12 months so that there wouldn't be any immediate concern of me doing anything to to negatively influence the Ella price and also this proposal to negatively influence the Ella price.
If anything, our hope is that this dramatically increases the the visibility of Bell two and a last dose both and that we're really able to make the most of this opportunity to need a lot of thought leaders and and improve the visibility of the last dose.
Another thing I think Sash may have mentioned it, but I was trying to figure out how to get back on the X spaces at the time.
But with with what we're proposing to have a very large booth and it will also come along with multiple passes to the to the Bitcoin conference, at least some of those passes will be committed to be gifted out to dedicated community members,
perhaps in some form of contest at some point. Also, I think the goal of us being there, it would be great to have as many community members who are going to be attending the conference get together with us and have meetups and really try to invigorate our community around what we're doing here.
So anyways, I know we have gone past time, but over the next several days, I definitely encourage you to give some feedback when the suggestion goes live on the CRC website.
And yeah, I think is an amazing opportunity. I know there could be some concerns about it, but but I think it's an amazing opportunity. So I'm hoping that it will be able to be moved forward.
But if there's anything in the suggestion that you have concerns about, please share them so we can update them and make sure the community is on board with this proposal.
All right. Thanks so much.
Thank you, Mark. And yeah, I think the the gesture to to personally help finance through, you know, taking away the ELA cell pressure only reaffirms your belief in ELA, but also in the Bitcoin conference and what it means.
I can always recall, you know, each year you have been there and you've sent pictures and updated the community.
And I know it's always an exciting moment where you find out about all the latest innovations and what's going on.
And I know, personally, I would love nothing more than just to get stuck into this this environment and really at the time, you know, we will have a bell to working product that we can actually showcase.
So I think, you know, it comes at the right time, too.
So, yeah, I'm hoping we can we can push forward on this. But certainly we need to go through the CRC and we can have some debates on this and understand kind of what the best route is moving forward and kind of what people think.
But the the actual event itself is in July. So it's on July the 25th. So we've got some time, but it would be great to really cement this in.
And Nashville as well is an incredible city. I went there many years ago now. But yeah, it was it's what they call Honky Tonk bars.
These are bars which are like saloons and they're side by side. They play live music all day, each place.
And musicians from all around America actually come to Nashville to to play in Honky Tonk bars.
They don't get paid much, but about a mile away from the main strip in Nashville are all the biggest studios.
There was actually one that I traveled to because I really wanted just to see it.
I didn't get in. I just looked on the outside and it's called Ocean Way Studios and it's had some of the greatest artists record there.
So if you are lucky enough as a musician to get spotted by a scout in one of the Honky Tonk bars, you get invited to one of the big studios a mile out where you work with songwriters.
You create a hit song and then you're off to your start in the music industry.
So it's quite an exciting lineup in that it's there as well.
And I think it would align well with some of the innovations and smart entertainment that we're all working on.
You know, everything from Elasti DRM to what Beat Farm are working with in the music side and then extending into also Rob and the Open Banking and his background in music.
And then, you know, how do we bring this all together for the Bitcoin 2024 through a demo, which showcases a Bitcoin layer, too?
It's just like, wow, we could be in a really special moment there. So, yeah, super exciting.
And I don't want to take too much more of your time. So thank you so much, everyone, for tuning in.
Thank you for listening to us. Thank you for getting the updates.
There was a recent cyber republic suggestion that passed just recently as a proposal, which is actually moving the Dow LLC away from Delaware.
So we're planning on actually dissolving the LLC in Delaware in probably April.
So we have some time to cross over. But the new one will be established in the Marshall Islands.
And this recently passed. So I'm leading this this new entity.
And I'm working with a firm called Midow, M-I-D-A-O.
And just recently, Balaji, who is a prominent Bitcoiner, he wrote the book and the Bitcoin was at the network state.
He is a huge proponent of the future of Dows and actually coincidentally put out a tweet which said, you know, the future of Dows is in the Marshall Islands
because they actually have worked hard to build different frameworks for different Dows and make it very accommodating.
So geopolitically, you know, we're seeing Bitcoin become more interesting as ETFs arise and you have countries get more involved.
Thailand, actually just where I'm based at the moment, they just recently introduced a tax break for crypto trading.
So geopolitically, competition is rising to basically invite talent and money and wealth into these different environments.
And here you have, you know, Marshall Islands. It's very obscure place in the world suddenly becoming a leader in actually the frameworks for Dows.
So there's huge opportunities here. I'll aim to keep everyone updated.
We should have an update in the next biweekly, but really, it's going to take around four to six weeks, but will be established in a new location.
Beyond that, everyone, is there any final questions?
Does anyone want to ask anything?
Jump in. Please just put your hand up.
Otherwise, share any thoughts.
OK, on that note, then wishing everyone a very happy Chinese New Year.
Please go and enjoy your weekends. I hope you have a great, great weekend, but also a great year ahead.
This is the year of the dragon. Let's let's make it happen.
There will be lots of good fortune, good leadership and good things ahead.
So I just think from from an ecosystem perspective, really, you know, alone we can do so much, but together we can really go far.
So when we all work together and align, you know, anything is possible.
So I just I just hope we continue to really come together and make this happen because we have lots to be excited about.
So thank you, everyone, for tuning in and wishing you a happy Chinese New Year.
We'll be back in two weeks time with more updates. Thank you, everyone.