Elastos didn't start as "another blockchain." It started as an operating system — and that heritage shapes everything about how the project approaches decentralization today.
Origins: The OS Vision (2000–2016)
Rong Chen earned a Master's degree at the University of Illinois (home of NCSA, where the Mosaic web browser was born) and joined Microsoft in 1992 as one of its first Chinese engineers. As a senior engineer on the Windows and .NET teams, he witnessed how the expanding internet was making PCs increasingly vulnerable. This led him to conceive a "network operating system" — an OS for the internet itself, where security was enforced at the platform level across all connected devices.
When Microsoft did not adopt his proposal to build a networked OS in C++, Chen left in 2000 to pursue the vision independently.
| Year | Event |
|---|
| 2000 | Rong Chen returns to China and founds Kortide to develop the Elastos OS. |
| 2003 | First-generation Elastos OS (Hexin) completed — the first homegrown OS in China. Earns a meeting with President Hu Jintao and recognition among China's top software influencers. |
| 2006 | Elastos 2.0 released — a full smartphone OS written in C++. |
| 2009 | China Unicom adopts Elastos middleware. |
| 2013 | Foxconn invests ¥200 million RMB (~$31M USD) in Elastos. |
Blockchain Foundation (2017–2018)
By 2017, blockchain technology offered something the original OS vision lacked: a trustless way to verify identity and ownership without a central server. The Elastos Foundation was established to fuse the OS philosophy with blockchain infrastructure.
| Year | Event |
|---|
| June 2017 | Elastos Foundation established in Singapore. |
| December 2017 | First public blockchain launch — ELA main chain goes live with the native ELA token. |
| January 2018 | ICO raises $60M USD to fund ecosystem growth. |
| August 2018 | Mainchain launches with merged mining — partnership with Bitmain enables BTC.com and AntPool miners to mine ELA alongside Bitcoin via AuxPoW, giving the chain access to significant Bitcoin hashrate. |
Infrastructure Growth (2019–2020)
| Year | Event |
|---|
| 2019 | ESC sidechain launches — full EVM compatibility for Solidity smart contracts. |
| 2019 | Elastos Hive launches — decentralized personal data storage network. |
| 2019 | First Elastos DAO Council elections held. |
| 2020 | W3C-compliant DID Sidechain activated — decentralized identity gets its own chain. |
| 2020 | Elastos Essentials super wallet released — multi-chain wallet, DID management, and dApp browser in one mobile app. |
Advanced Features (2021–2022)
| Year | Event |
|---|
| 2021 | Hive 2.0 launches with independently operated nodes. |
| 2021 | DID 2.0 with advanced verifiable credential features. |
| 2022 | Strong focus on Carrier v2 (next-generation P2P networking) and DID — deep engineering on the decentralized identity stack, credentials, and ecosystem integrations. |
Innovation & Integration (2023–2024)
| Year | Event |
|---|
| 2023 | Active Proxy Service launches for Elastos Carrier — decentralised P2P networking and NAT traversal (DePin). |
| 2023 | Elacity v1 marketplace launches — digital rights management for audio and video assets. |
| 2023 | BPoS consensus upgrade (April 2023, block height 1,405,000) — replaces pure DPoS; validators now require bonded stake, aligning economic incentives. |
| 2024 | BeL2 (Bitcoin Elastos Layer 2) development begins, exploring native Bitcoin DeFi with ELA staking. Note: the Elastos Foundation later rebranded as NBW Foundation and redirected BeL2 as BTCD for a separate project. The Elastos Foundation has since announced its dissolution. |
World Computer Era (2025–Present)
| Year | Event |
|---|
| 2025 | Elastos DAO rebrand — the Cyber Republic name is retired in favour of a streamlined DAO structure with on-chain proposals and council elections. |
| 2025 | World Computer Initiative (WCI) kickstarted — distributed community development begins integrating blockchain, PC2, Runtime, and Carrier into a unified World Computer stack. |
| 2025 | Elacity v3 Marketplace launched for digital asset trading in audio and video markets. |
| 2025 | PC2 (Personal Cloud Computer) ecosystem expands with Wealth Capsules, local AI integration, and the Elacity Exchange. |
2026 Outlook
The central goal for 2026 is the realisation of the Elastos World Computer — a fully integrated, decentralised computing platform where:
- The Main Chain + ESC + EID provide trust, identity, and programmability.
- PC2 delivers self-hosted personal cloud infrastructure with sovereign storage and compute.
- Runtime provides a zero-trust execution environment for AI agents and applications.
- Carrier underpins all peer-to-peer networking with NAT traversal and encrypted tunnels.
Key 2026 milestones on the roadmap include full Web3 OS integration, global adoption partnerships, and enterprise-ready features — all converging toward a World Computer that realises Rong Chen's original vision of an internet where users control their own data, identity, and applications.
Key Milestones
| Year | Milestone |
|---|
| 2000 | Rong Chen founds Kortide, begins OS research |
| 2003 | First-generation Elastos OS (Hexin) — first homegrown OS in China |
| 2006 | Elastos 2.0 smartphone OS in C++ |
| 2009 | China Unicom adopts Elastos middleware |
| 2013 | Foxconn invests ~$31M USD |
| 2017 | Elastos Foundation founded in Singapore |
| Dec 2017 | ELA main chain genesis block |
| Jan 2018 | $60M ICO |
| Aug 2018 | Merge-mining with Bitcoin (Bitmain partnership) |
| 2019 | ESC sidechain, Hive, first DAO Council elections |
| 2020 | W3C DID sidechain, Essentials wallet |
| 2021 | Hive 2.0, DID 2.0 |
| 2022 | Carrier v2 and DID development |
| 2023 | Carrier Active Proxy (DePin), Elacity v1, BPoS upgrade |
| 2024 | BeL2 development |
| 2025 | Elastos DAO rebrand (Cyber Republic retired); World Computer Initiative (WCI) |
| 2026 | Elastos World Computer — full integration of all four pillars |