Lisk Elite Group
Having not paid much attention to Lisk since Slush Tokyo 2018, where Max Kordek participated, we were intrigued to see Lisk listed as a Gold Sponsor for the recent Dapp Summit. Alas, it was not Lisk themselves presenting, but rather a representative of Elite Group advocating for the Lisk ecosystem. So, who/what is Lisk Elite Group?
Lisk has long been criticized for concentration of mining power. Originally based out of China, Elite Group is the largest mining pool, representing 54 of the 101 delegates forging blocks in Lisk’s Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) consensus algorithm.
In a step towards increased accountability and transparency, Elite Group incorporated the Elite Foundation in November 2018 in Singapore. Elite has established an incubator, Elite Center, in Xiamen, and is preparing a second one in Tokyo, with the goal of attracting more developers to the Lisk platform. The Elite Exchange, EliteX.io, officially entered its testing phase on December 29, 2018.
In October, Elite has started publishing monthly progress reports as Lisk Elite on Medium. However, their Twitter handle is very sparse with only 10 tweets and 82 followers. The majority of the communication happens on WeChat in Mandarin.
At the Dapp Summit, Elite Group highlighted the following community contributions:
- Facilitated Lisk exchange listings on Binance (2017), Huobi (February 2018) and OKex (June 2018)
- Took the initiative for various Lisk meetups in mainland China and Hong Kong
- Established Elite Center, the world’s first Lisk blockchain incubator in Xiamen in July 2018
- Supported fundraising for the MADANA ICO
The roadmap for the Elite Exchange, EliteX.io, projects an aggressive roll out schedule. With the Alpha version released, the exchange is due to go-live by mid-year, with a European branch established at the same time. By the end of 2020, a decentralized exchange in a compliant jurisdiction, e.g. Malta, is planned. The group aims to become a Top 20 exchange during 2021, and break into the Top 10 in the 2022/2023 timeframe.
The scope for the initial release by mid-2019 appear fairly manageable. Trading pairs will cover LSK, BTC and ETH, with USDT (sigh!) as the stablecoin.
The presentation closed with a re-iteration of the perceived benefits of Lisk.
Obviously, it was helpful that Lisk themselves have published their comprehensive development roadmap at the end of November.
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