Introduction
The Elastic Project (XEL) lite wallet is due to be released (subject to testing) on June 17, 2017.
This is one of the most anticipated crypto projects for me.
It has a product that is almost ready for full release and is not just an idea asking for money.
There is a countdown timer for the launch here.
So What is Elastic?
Elastic is a community project to build a decentralised computing platform.
The way it works is like this:
The Elastic network uses its own cryptocurrency, XEL.
The total number of XEL coins will be 100 million (1/8 of Golem tokens) and the supply is fixed.
Problems are modeled on Elastic using the Elastic Programming Language (EPL) which is based on C.
Those who want a computing problem solved offer a certain amount of XEL coins for solving it on the network.
"Miners" then solve the problems using their computational resources and are rewarded a portion of the XEL from the job based on their contribution to the solution.
It is (in some respects) similar to projects like Golem but this actually came before it. One could also consider it to be an evolution of the Gridcoin idea.
As I am not a programmer I will apologise in advance if I have mis-spoken on any of this._
This is how I understand the technical side of it but I would recommend reading the new Bitcointalk thread here to get more detailed information.
There is also an official Elastic forum here and website here.
What Really Impresses Me About Elastic
For me, as a non programmer what has really impressed me about Elastic is the community spirit.
The whole project used a donation model to raise funds. For health reasons the original developer was forced to leave which left the bitcoin donations locked in a multisignature wallet.
The current development team believed so strongly in the basic idea that they took over and worked tirelessly on it without any form of direct payment in return.
That effort is about to come to fruition and illustrates that a good idea with community support can prevail and succeed in unfortunate circumstances.
With all the scams and "get rich quick" schemes we see in the cryptocurrency world this is very refreshing.
What Makes Elastic Different
So community spirit is great you say but what makes this different?
Elastic is more than just an idea or vapourware as I stated earlier.
So many projects launch with just a white paper and have no actual product to show.
Unlike Golem the Elastic computing software (main-net) is actually complete - the only reason it has not yet been released is because the developers are fastidious about testing its security and making sure it works.
The whole purpose in releasing the lite wallet is to bring more attention to the platform, along with more resources to help complete the testing phase.
Conclusion
It remains to be seen if Elastic will be a huge success or not.
On the basis of what I have seen so far (and my admittedly limited knowledge) it certainly should be.
The litewallet should help to bring in new interest and new sets of eyes to help check and refine the mainnet code.
The more people looking at something the better the chances are of ironing out any problems.
If you are looking at investing on XEL at some point make sure to do your own research (read the bitcointalk thread, ask questions there etc).
Do not just take my word for it. This is not investment advice, this is my personal opinion and could be wrong.
Thank you for reading
