Following the June 21 announcement from Coinbase Assets’ official Twitter account, premier cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, has added support for “Elastos” with the listing now live for both ELA-USD and ELA-USDT trading pairs. The listing represents Elastos’ greatest stride into the public exchange scene to date, with previous listings including Huobi, KuCoin, and Bittrex Global. Now on Coinbase, the Elastos ecosystem will benefit from substantial increases in both public exposure and liquidity support.

User Considerations: Transferring “Elastos” to Coinbase

For clarification:
There are currently several types of ELA. Some reside within the Elastos Ecosystem as coins, and other “wrapped” versions reside within other ecosystems. In Ethereum’s case, as an ERC-20 token. To keep things simple for potential Coinbase users, we will not list every single version of ELA here, instead, only distinguish between the following:

ELA on the Elastos Main Chain
ELA on the Elastos Smart Chain
WELA on the Elastos Smart Chain
ELA on Ethereum (ERC-20)

While Coinbase is using the generic terms “Elastos” and “ELA”, they have only listed ELA on Ethereum, NOT the other three types listed above, or any other versions in existence.

Therefore, before proceeding to transfer ELA to Coinbase, users should note that the exchange will only support ELA on Ethereum (ERC-20). As such, users must first bridge their ELA from the Elastos Smart Chain (ESC) to Ethereum via a bridging application before sending to Coinbase. Transferring ELA directly from the Elastos Smart Chain (ESC), Elastos Main Chain, or any other chain, will result in lost funds.

In order to securely move ELA to Ethereum, users may open either the Glide Finance or ShadowTokens cross-chain bridging applications that run on the Elastos Smart Chain (ESC). Users simply enter the amount of ELA they would like to transfer, and ensure that it is being sent from Elastos Smart Chain (ESC) to Ethereum. Once received on the Ethereum blockchain, the ELA tokens may be deposited to Coinbase for trading. For a full guide on how to bridge on Glide Finance, click here.

Please note:
Currently, there is a 1000 ELA minimum to bridge ELA to Ethereum, although that amount may be lowered in the future.

In addition to bridging, users can acquire ELA on Ethereum (ERC-20) directly from the Uniswap DEX.

Users can track their ELA on etherscan at the following token address:

ELA on Ethereum (ERC-20) token address: 0xe6fd75ff38Adca4B97FBCD938c86b98772431867

To keep up to date with Coinbase’s impending ELA on Ethereum (ERC-20) listing, stay tuned here on the official Elastos Info Blog, and follow the Elastos ecosystem’s official Twitter account and official Discord.

The Elastos Essentials development team has officially hired blockchain security firm Slowmist to conduct comprehensive audits for Elastos Essentials, the flagship Super-Wallet application of the Elastos ecosystem. On Essentials, users can access the fullest expanse of assets, features, applications, and platform services in the Elastos ecosystem. As such, ensuring and optimizing operational security is of the highest priority for Essentials and its users. Slowmist has already been hard at work getting the audit process underway for several months, and has been thorough and detailed in issuing reports to Trinity Tech.

Slowmist Audits: Reports and Results

1. No major security issues were found. Broadly speaking, Elastos Essentials and its framework operate robustly.
2. Minor improvements and optimizations were suggested, such as to:
   - Use a custom keypad to input mnemonic words;
   - Detect URLs of bad actors posing as dApps in the built-in browser;
   - Improve the smart contract transaction approval screen to clearly indicate when a user permits a third party to access and/or use assets;
   - Improve randomness for red packet identifiers;
   - Prevent screenshots and video recording;
   - Detect jailbroken and/or rooted devices.

Looking Ahead: Next Steps

The Essentials team has thoroughly vetted all of the suggested improvements and optimizations outlined in Slowmist’s preliminary report. The team is now in the process of finalizing all relevant modifications, and is preparing a new version of Elastos Essentials to be released internally.

The internal release of Essentials will be submitted to Slowmist promptly. Upon receiving the newest release of Elastos Essentials, Slowmist will conduct a comprehensive audit, and issue its final audit report to the Essentials team, which will be made publicly available in its entirety for the Elastos community and beyond.

It should be noted that although many minor modifications recommended by Slowmist have already been included in recent releases of Elastos Essentials in order to bring a superior experience to users at the nearest juncture. Such examples include the new mnemonic keypad and video recording restriction.

Elastos Essentials’ New Mnemonic Keypad

At present, the Essentials team anticipates that Slowmist’s upcoming audit report will be issued in July, at which point its contents will be made available to the public.

As always, to remain up-to-date with the latest developments, news, and audit reports for Elastos Essentials, stay tuned here on the official Elastos Info Medium Blog.

With much support from the Feeds team, Pasar has now released Pasar V2, the newest version of the Pasar marketplace. With major funding support from Cyber Republic via CR Proposal #67, the Pasar Web App is very much a product of the Elastos community. Now several months into its development, the Pasar Marketplace is already the Elastos ecosystem’s leading decentralized platform for NFT minting and exchange. With Pasar V2 now live, a suite of new NFT features are now available to the Elastos community, and a whole lot more is in the works and on the way.

Pasar V2 Key Features

Here is what Pasar has in store for users in V2:

Minting contracts (ERC1155) that are specifically dedicated to Premier Creators. Premier Creators can seamlessly create and deploy these contracts on the Elastos Smart Chain (ESC). Each NFT minted from a designated creator’s minting contract will have its own customized collection symbol and name that creators may use for marketing purposes.

A universal minting contract (ERC1155) from which users can mint NFTs along with creators’ dedicated minting contracts.

A dedicated “Pasar V2” marketplace contract that supports:
- All NFTs. Whether minted from creators’ dedicated minting contracts or universal minting contracts, all NFTs can be imported and exchanged on Pasar V2.
- NFTs sales for both ERC721 and ERC1155 standards.
- Fixed-price and auction-style NFT sales.
- Single NFT sales and NFT batch sales.
- Pricing denominations in ELA, WELA, USDC, GLIDE, DIA and other tokens.
- More ERC20 tokens on the ESC will be added as well.
- NFT mining and trading in various quantities — i.e., a single NFT token or several NFT tokens that share the same tokenID.
- Various badges that can be linked to NFTs
- Integration with Hive Vault to allow users to store profile data.

Future Outlook and Upcoming Features

Pasar V2 represents a major milestone for the Elastos ecosystem with respect to NFT minting and exchange. But the Feeds team is just getting started with Pasar’s marketplace capabilities, and has its sights set on major opportunities ahead. Ultimately, the team envisions Pasar becoming a totally decentralized, open, and community-driven marketplace for the exchange of personal data and digital assets. Here are a few of the features the Feeds team has planned for Pasar’s upcoming versions:

• Support for NFTs from other platforms to expand the range of NFTs that can be exchanged on the Pasar marketplace.
• Collaborations with popular ecosystem NFT projects
  Decentralized status model that offers badges to active community members.
• New DIA token use cases on the Pasar marketplace.
• Basic, decentralized social features on NFT listings such as likes and comments.
• Innovations in Pasar tokenomics.

To keep up with the Feeds team and their upcoming versions of the Feeds social media application, Pasar marketplace, and cutting-edge NFT features, stay tuned here on the official Elastos Info Medium Blog.

Developing its platform on Elastos to complement Pasar, MetEast is a decentralized NFT marketplace ready to add value to Elastos’ growing NFT ecosystem. In addition to allowing users to mint and trade NFTs via encrypted asset agreements, MetEast is bringing a suite of new features to the Elastos ecosystem that will provide superior liquidity for NFTs, support autonomous governance functions, and enhance social interactions from within the platform. On the technical side, MetEast is proud to be developing its application on the Elastos Smart Chain (ESC), which opens up a number of opportunities for integrations and synergies with the growing community of ecosystem applications currently operating on the ESC.

Solving the NFT Liquidity Problem

To date, tens of millions of NFTs have been minted across the blockchain space. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these NFTs are never sold, and remain dormant after they are minted. Circulating and monetizing these NFTs is today’s great challenge for users in the NFT space, and MetEast has developed an incentive model on their platform to help users surmount this challenge. A special NFT called a Blind Box plays a major role in solving this problem for users, and MetEast’s value proposition Here’s how Blind Boxes work:

On MetEast, users can mint customizable NFT packages called Blind Boxes and fill them with their own NFTs. Some Blind Boxes will contain very rare NFTs, and others will not.

Users may sell their Blind Boxes to interested buyers that are seeking high-value NFTs at a discount, and are willing to try their luck at a game of chance.

Blind Boxes minted and sold on MetEast’s platform constitute NFTs themselves, which means their contents are immutable, and both buyers and sellers can trust that outcomes are fair and tamper-proof.

With plans to deploy on Ethereum as well, MetEast will also be able to support most of the NFTs on OpenSea’s marketplace, which will expand the NFT selection in Elastos’ NFT ecosystem.

Key Features

To build a strong platform around Blind Boxes and form a robust community, MetEast plans to bring a number of key features to market for the MetEast 1.0 release:

NFT Minting and Transfers: Users will be able to mint their own NFTs on MetEast, or transfer in their NFTs from OpenSea and other NFT platforms.
NFT Blind Box Capacity: MetEast 1.0 will allow users to package up to 100 NFTs in a single Blind Box, and to exchange their Blind Boxes in an open NFT marketplace.
Trading Rewards: Users will be rewarded with MetEast’s native token, ME Coin, for exchanging NFTs in MetEast’s NFT marketplace.
DAO Functionality: MetEast will establish a foundation for community governance via a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). ME Coins will serve as governance tokens, and will allow their holders to participate in DAO functions.

A Look Ahead: MetEast 2.0

Already hard at work on getting MetEast 1.0 to market, the MetEast team has its sights on future features and integrations as well. The team has already confirmed that MetEast 2.0 will be focused on DeFi credit systems. At present the team has three main objectives for the platform’s second release:

Deployment on Ethereum: By bringing the platform to Ethereum, MetEast aims to access OpenSea’s NFT marketplace and activate a channel for an influx of NFTs to the Elastos ecosystem.
DeFi Features: MetEast 2.0 will allow users to collateralize NFTs for staking and loan functions.
Credit Features: MetEast 2.0 will integrate Elastos DIDs to realize anonymous credit evaluations for the purposes of issuing personalized loans.

The MetEast core team is composed of a global community of thought leaders, professionals, developers, technologists, investors, incubators, and community members that bring diverse backgrounds, philosophies, and life experience to Elastos. The team operates without a CEO, as team members aim to collaborate and add value to the project in a decentralized model. To contact the MetEast team directly and join their growing community, connect with the project on their social channels:

Social Channels
Twitter: @Meteast2022

And as always, to remain up-to-date on the latest events and developments in Elastos’ growing NFT ecosystem, stay tuned here on the official Elastos Info Medium Blog.

Important Elastos Links:

Elastos Foundation Website

Info Website

Info Twitter

Elastos Info is pleased to announce the third rendition of the Cyber Republic DAO’s annual elections. Now two full years, 78 proposals, and countless funding allocations into the decentralized operation of Elastos’ ecosystem DAO, our 12-member council has collaborated to ensure the brightest future for the Elastos tech stack, its brand and adoption, and the diverse and growing community that has formed around it. Some of the most notable funding accomplishments to date, include: the legal registration of Cyber Republic in the state of Delaware, USA, the onboarding of strategic marketing agency TLGG, as well as funding support for native platforms Glide (DEX), Elacity (NFT and Metaverse), and FilDA (decentralized finance and banking).

Individuals and organizations that intend to run for CR Council are required to stake 5,000 ELA or, for exceptional candidates, find an ELA sponsor for their candidacy. To participate in the election, voters may cast one vote per ELA held in their Essentials wallet across any number of candidates they choose. For full details into the operations of Cyber Republic and its annual electoral process, please visit the CR Whitepaper page at the link below:

CR Whitepaper

Our council will see its third rendition take form in the month ahead:

Registration will open at block height 1,162,930 on May 12, 2022. At this time, aspiring council members may register as candidates to participate in the election. Once a single candidate has registered, ELA tokenholders may immediately begin casting votes.
Voting will conclude at block height 1,184,530 on June 12, 2022. At this time, all outstanding vote counts will be finalized, and the 12 candidates with the highest vote counts will become Council members for Cyber Republic’s third one-year term, which will culminate circa June 11, 2023.

As always, whether you’re looking to participate in Cyber Republic’s upcoming elections or to simply keep tabs on the action, the official Elastos Info Medium Blog is the best place for all of the latest news and updates. Looking to speak to someone about running or finding a sponsor? Please email election@cyberrepublic.org and introduce yourself. In the days ahead, Elastos Info will be releasing an official guide and tutorial for participating in CR Council elections directly from Elastos Essentials. Stay tuned!

One of the most versatile, powerful, and promising components of the Elastos tech stack, the Elastos Smart Chain (ESC) is a fully EVM-compatible sidechain that supports Solidity smart contract execution. Secured by Elastos’ community-backed DPoS consensus, the ESC is a high performance, scalable chain for developing decentralized applications (dApps). Users and developers alike can utilize the ESC for the same functions and features they enjoy on Ethereum.

The ESC: Key Features

The Elastos Smart Chain (ESC) supports a series of high-impact features:

1) Solidity Smart Contract Support

The ESC supports the execution of smart contracts written in Solidity, opening up a programmable environment for dApp development.

2) Robust Security from Bitcoin’s Hashpower

By virtue of its connection with the Elastos mainchain, the ESC is protected by the Bitcoin network’s industry-leading hashpower.

3) EVM Compatibility

In bringing Solidity smart contract support to the Elastos ecosystem, the ESC opens the door for a massive community of blockchain developers to build sophisticated applications on Elastos, and to port existing applications written in Solidity as well.

4) Flexible, Scalable Sidechain Architecture

Elastos’s mainchain-sidechain architecture is highly flexible and highly scalable. The Elastos mainchain supports the development of both a large number of identical sidechains for scalability purposes and a wide array of unique sidechains with varied forms of consensus.

5) Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

With programmable smart contract modules, the ESC enables the development of an ecosystem of interoperable DeFi applications.

The ESC: Live Applications

At present, a number of Elastos community teams have applications running on the ESC:

1) Glide Finance — Decentralized Exchange (DEX)

Glide Finance is a decentralized exchange (DEX) protocol that allows users traders to enjoy a high-performance trading environment at reduced costs. Already deployed on the ESC, Glide supports the decentralized exchange of ELA and other digital assets, and also serves to promote the development of Elastos ecosystem DeFi legos.

2) Feeds — Decentralized Social Media

Feeds is the first decentralized social application built in Elastos ecosystem. Feeds shares a common vision and goal with Elastos: to build a network of platforms that provide comprehensive protection for self-ownership at the user level. On Feeds, users own the data they generate, whether in the form of comments, posts, likes, or entire personal channels. In addition to supporting core functions already active in prominent social applications, Feeds is focused on social media-native Web3 features. Already, NFTs can be minted directly by users on the Feeds application, which supports NFT functions via the ESC.

3) Elacity — Web3 Marketplace

Elacity is a Web3 marketplace and ecosystem based on Elastos Smart Chain (ESC). Elacity leverages the tech stack to aggregate ESC smart contracts, services, and tools into a user-friendly smart -city portal.

4) ODin NFT — NFT and Metaverse Platform

ODin NFT is a decentralized NFT and metaverse platform. ODin NFT is committed to creating an ecosystem of its own that features Chinese cultural artwork in a metaverse setting. ODin’s long-term vision is to become what they refer to as the “Chinese version of SuperRare.” At present, ODin utilizes the ESC to verify NFT ownership and transactions.

ESC: Operation Manual

Setup

To configure the Elastos Smart Chain network on MetaMask, follow the steps below:

1) Log into MetaMask, click “Network”, and select “Add Network”.

2) Fill in the corresponding box with the following parameters:

Network Name: ESC

New RPC URL: https://api.elastos.io/esc

Chain ID: 20

Blockchain Browser: https://esc.elastos.io

Instructions for Cross-chain Operations using ShadowTokens

ShadowTokens is a cross-chain bridge that operates between the Elastos mainchain, HECO Chain, and Ethereum. Using ShadowTokens, users can transfer digital assets (ETH, ELA and any ERC20, ERC677 or ERC827 tokens) efficiently and securely between the three chains. Users who want to send assets from Ethereum or HECO Chain to the ESC must first send the assets to the Elastos mainchain via ShadowTokens. Then, users may complete the transaction by sending their assets from the Elastos mainchain to the ESC via Elastos Essentials.

Instructions for Cross-chain Transfers from Elastos to Ethereum

1) Visit https://tokbridge.net. Connect wallet (MetaMask or WalletConnect) to the Elastos network. After connecting to the network, your address will be displayed in the navigation bar in the upper right corner, and the “Max” button will be displayed in the “ELA balance” position. In addition, the page will display two ELA balances:

i. The upper balance represents the assets on the current network (Elastos).

ii. The lower balance represents the assets on the destination network (Ethereum).

There will be logos for “Lock Position”, “Release”, “Burn”, and “Minting” on the page, which will change according to the assets you select. In this case, ELA will be locked on the Elastos mainchain, and its shadow tokens (ELA on Ethereum) will be mint at a rate of 1:1 on Ethereum and managed by the related smart contract. When ELA is transferred back to the Elastos mainchain, the “ELA on Ethereum” token is burned, and the mainchain ELA is released to the designated address on the ESC. This process applies for all asset transfers.

2) Enter the amount of ELA you want to transfer to Ethereum. The minimum transfer amount is 1 ELA. It should be noted that ELA is used for gas fees on the ESC. As such, some ELA should be reserved to cover transaction fees. When you enter a valid amount, the “Next” button will become active. Click the “Next” button to proceed.

**Note: The address bar can be changed. If you want to bridge your asset to another address, you can change the address. In most cases, this function can and should be ignored.**

3) Next, you will arrive at a confirmation page. Make sure transaction details are correct, and then click “OK”.

4) The application will prompt you to authorize the contract in your wallet. There is a default gas fee which does not need to be adjusted. However, if you would like to accelerate transaction confirmation, you may increase the fee.

**Note: No authorization is required to transfer ELA and ETH. However, for ERC-20 tokens, there will be an expense authorization request to allow the smart contract to retrieve funds from the token contract, and there will be a subsequent request to confirm the bridge transfer.**

5) The interface will display the transmission progress, including information regarding block confirmation and bridging verification transactions on the original network, and generating or releasing your assets on the destination network. When the transaction is complete, a link will prompt the user to view the confirmed transaction on the block explorer of the destination chain.

**Note: In some cases, the transfer may take longer than expected — that is, upwards of 5 minutes. This is because the bridge uses a fixed gas fee. If you experience such a delay, check the connection of the block explorer. Regardless, rest assured that your funds are safe, and the transaction will be completed successfully in spite of the delay.**

Instructions for Cross-chain Transfers from Ethereum to Elastos

1) In Metamask, switch the network to Ethereum, wait for the application to synchronize, and then check your balance on the Ethereum network.

2) To view the ELA you minted on Ethereum, click the pull-down menu for “ETH”, open the default token list, and select “ELA”.

**Note: You can also check the opposite bridging direction by clicking the “switch” icon, but you need to switch the network in Metamask first. Otherwise, it may not automatically connect your wallet to the desired network.**

**Note: You can also add customized tokens by pasting the token contract address in the search bar.**

3) To transfer ELA from Ethereum to Elastos, repeat the same process outlined above. Now transferring in the reverse direction, you can burn ELA tokens on Ethereum and release the original ELA on Elastos. However, if you initiate a transfer from Ethereum, the gas fee will be much higher due to a larger confirmation requirement. Of course, a more costly transaction should be considered in advance.

Instructions for Recharging Your Balance on the ESC

1) Open Elastos Essentials, switch the network to “Elastos”, select “mainchain ELA”, and click “Transaction and Transfer”.

2) Advance to the subsequent page and select “Transfer” and then select “ELA Smart Chain”

3) Enter the deposit amount, confirm the information, click “Recharge”, and wait for the recharge to be completed.

The Elastos Smart Chain is an exciting and multidimensional technology that is just beginning to draw attention from application developers in the Elastos ecosystem. The ESC’s and its capabilities are constantly being optimized and improved, and developer interest is growing rapidly in suit. To keep up with the ESC as it continues to support new and innovative ecosystem use cases in existing and forthcoming applications alike, follow CR Herald, and stay up-to-date here at the official Elastos Info Medium Blog.

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Introducing: The Elastos Smart Chain (ESC) and Cross-chain Operation Manual was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Cyber Republic, Elastos’ community DAO, and E-Lab have launched a Grant Fund of 100,000 ELA (Currently around 450,000 USD) to help fund projects looking to build with Elastos technologies. However, unlike the governance process that Cyber Republic currently uses, which includes 12 elected Council Members that vote on each proposal, the CR Grant Fund voting process will open up to the entire Elastos community, further decentralizing funding and creating an alternative process that could offer a more streamlined and efficient approach by giving the community the ability to independently govern. Most importantly, the Elastos decentralized identity solution (DID) will be at the heart of this new voting initiative, creating a one person one vote system, while proving the value and maturity of the Elastos tech stack.

How it works:

To put it simply, “Win the community, win funding.”

Projects looking for funding for a dApp or other development initiative must first create a CR suggestion on the Cyber Republic website followed by creating an E-Lab Proposal on https://e-lab.io/proposals/my-proposals. All projects can apply for up to 10K ELA. Once the E-Lab Proposal is approved by the E-Lab team, Elastos community members, with an active Elastos DID, can vote via the Elastos Essentials Super-Wallet App. In order to activate an account on E-Lab, both projects and users will be required to pass a KYC check via https://kyc-me.io/ to ensure the authenticity of the process.

The regular voting period will start on the 1st of each month and will last for 7 days, allowing qualified users to upvote (+1 to voting score) or downvote (-1 to voting score) each project. Only the one project with the highest voting score per voting period, at least 100 is required, will be eligible for grant. The team behind E-Lab will be analyzing each winning project and voter for things like fraud and other qualifying conditions. If a project wins the community vote for that month, the CR Council will release their funds automatically, without having a typical council vote themselves.

To view the full CR Proposal, refer to the original proposal here: https://www.cyberrepublic.org/proposals/6185164deb709a007840c67c

To view the rules, refer to the E-Lab documentation here: https://docs.e-lab.io/introduction/rules

For Developers:

All development teams looking to apply for up to 10,000 ELA funding must use at least one Elastos core tech component in their plan. Once your proposal is ready
Create a DID via Elastos Essentials,
Get your DID KYC verified via https://kyc-me.io
Sign on https://e-lab.io
Create a suggestion on https://www.cyberrepublic.org/suggestion/create
Put your proposal on E-Lab and win the community voting process for your project.
The first community voting period is planned from March 1st to March 8th 2022 with the winner announced shortly after. Community voting will take place monthly for the next 12 months with 1 winner announced monthly (read official rules in https://docs.e-lab.io/introduction/rules
Discord Channel for developers: https://discord.gg/kDgNJ4DPHS

For Community Members:

To vote for your favorite project,
Create a DID via Elastos Essentials,
Get it KYC verified via https://kyc-me.io and sign in to https://e-lab.io.
Be ready to vote during the first community voting period planned from March 1st to March 8th 2022.
Discord Channel for Community Voters: https://discord.gg/pnwm6equkt

For more information, please refer to E-Lab documentation: https://docs.e-lab.io/

E-Lab Personnel:

MButcho#1612 as a project lead
Elastos Guardians as project administrators
Benjamin Piette | Essentials#0348 as lead developer
Sofiane#3981 as developer
Frost ❄#4466 as designer
Elastos Core teams as consultants

“Technology is the extension of our nervous system.”
-Marshall McLuhan

If technology is the extension of my nervous system, I don’t want my nervous system controlled by big tech anymore. In fact, I want them far, far from the controls. I want to control myself. I want to control my part of the internet. I want to enjoy my property, in privacy.

It’s been here now for over 20 years. This strange little infant. At first, small and vulnerable. Then, able to crawl, able to walk, and finally, majestically, able to run, to fly.

But then again, maybe we were wrong, all along. Maybe we have not seen its development clearly from the very beginning. Maybe this child never even learned to crawl. Maybe, just maybe, it is still that little infant. Full of potential. Just waiting for its moment to spring forth. To stand up. To declare itself autonomous. To shout, “ I exist!”

I’m talking about the internet. A concept rife with cliches about interconnection. But until very recently, a world gone stale. Toxic. Bordering on dystopian.

But then, NFTs happened.

No, not the CryptoPunks, nor the Bored Apes, nor the auctions at Sotheby’s. So many people today are saying that they, “don’t get NFTs”. I’m here to tell you that this is caused by a simple misunderstanding: Do not focus on the “content” of NFTs, as Marshall McLuhan would say. Focus on their “medium”, because that is what matters, that is their message.

Because it’s not the content of NFTs that has already changed our society, it’s their mere presence.

All of a sudden, you can own things on the internet.

It doesn’t quite matter what you own, but just that you can own at all. If you don’t believe me, buy one and see how it feels.

Our culture will be shaped by NFTs, but even more so, by its master, Web3. In other words, it will not be what you can do on Web3, but that you can do it at all, that will shape our culture. It will not be the content of Web3, but the medium itself. This is the most significant development in the history of property rights — which is to say, the history of liberty.

Those that dismiss NFTs on their content are missing the message.

Imagine if everyone in the world shared all possessions. Or to phrase it more accurately, imagine a world where everyone rented their property from a few select companies. If you want access to what you “own”, you ask permission. If the company wants to go through your possessions, if they want to study them for profit, sell them for profit, share them with your government, you are not even made aware. In fact, you already agreed to this arrangement with your cyber slumlord when you were forced to click “agree” at the bottom of the 100-page Black Mirror-style document presented to you before entering into their “services”. If this were the physical world, what a very different world it would be.

The fact remains that individual property rights form the backbone of a functional civilization and are essential to a free society.

The fact also remains that individual property rights did not exist on the internet until the invention of Bitcoin. And until NFTs, most people could not see past the concept of literal money being its only application.

NFTs represent ownership, but a different type of ownership. Ownership of the ephemeral arena of the digital. An arena where until recently, the user was losing.

There might be more data on the internet than molecules on the physical earth. Yet only a few companies own this data. If you want to point to the overlords of your simulation, big tech would be a natural place to start.

No one should own another’s property. This is typically called theft in the physical world. But in the digital — an incomprehensible place for most — the very same organizations that built the world control the narrative. That narrative has always been about buzzwords like “social network” and “connection”, with clever branding of families smiling over video chat and empowered industrial institutions helping the world thrive.

But it’s been anything but. Proper buzzwords would be, “unwitting serfdom” and “surveillance”. But this is not sexy to talk about, and there is a good reason for this.

While many attribute the Orwell novel 1984 to our current world, others more astutely attribute Huxley’s Brave New World. In the latter, all individuals are prescribed a drug called Soma that lulls them into an apathetic state where they get their fix and become passive participants in a sort of cultural tyranny, or as Marshall McLuhan calls it, a “subliminal state of Narcissus trance”. Speaking of novels, how many people currently using the term “Metaverse” have actually read Snow Crash? If the medium is the message, the message here is simple: read actual books.

With a society as clinically addicted to the narcissistic feedback loops from our facade-like online identities, our back pockets are always exposed, and our overlords — or shall we call them, digital pharmacists — gleefully slip us pill after pill with one hand, while ripping our legal property out from under our possession with the other.

Make no mistake, they call us “users” for a reason.

Again, this is theft. This is the equivalent of drugging victims to make them compliant. It is ugly stuff, and the friendly marketing would make comparisons of this nature seem vastly overblown. But logic tells us otherwise.

If you create something (or buy something), it should inherently be your property. Yet that is not what happens online. Or, shall we say, it was not what used to happen.

NFTs represent the concept of a tokenized piece of data. Once we tokenize data, and make it non-fungible and tie it to an immutable ledger that the public controls, we have a very different system.

While before it was: “Who owns this? Let’s see which big tech platform it resides on.”

It now becomes: “Who owns this? Let’s check the ledger.”

So what do we call this newfound transition to an internet with inherent liberty and property rights?

It’s called Web3.

Web3 says to the 21st century, “How can you be free if you don’t own your own property. If you don’t own your own identity?”

Web3 says to the 21st century, “In a future where virtual reality and the Metaverse will become more mainstream, do you really want to give up literal control of your brain and nervous system, even your sense of reality, to a corporation?”

Web3 is the medium, and while many focus on its vast array of nascent content, they miss the individual’s right to digital liberty becoming a reality.

And that’s the message.