A phone that runs apps is called a smartphone. A web that runs apps should naturally be called a SmartWeb. The Elastos World Computer is the SmartWeb.
Because no one can turn on or shut down all SmartWeb nodes simultaneously, nor update or upgrade them at once, the World Computer’s operating system cannot have disruptive version numbers. It must therefore be the first and last internet operating system ever built. That is why it is called ElastOS: elastic (cloud) computing across the world and everlasting.
Download your digital assets on @ElastosInfo and they’re automatically stored in your file manager as encrypted .ddrm files 🔐
Your content stays owned by you, protected with blockchain-backed security, and portable across devices without relying on centralized platforms.
Throughout human history, the physical world has been defined by the drive to reduce scarcity and create abundance.
In the digital realm, however, Elastos introduces scarcity and genuine property rights.
With AI bots handling all hard labor, neither Karl Marx’s Das Kapital (the visible hand of socialist planning) nor Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (the invisible hand of the free market) seems adequate anymore.
“Look Ma, no hands!”🙌
What "Apps Ship With Their Own Binary Loaders" Means. Think about how apps work today on your computer:
Current model (broken):
Your operating system (Windows, macOS, Linux) loads the app. The OS trusts the app. The app trusts whatever libraries (DLLs, .so files, node_modules) it needs. Nobody verifies anything after the initial install. A library update could inject malicious code and nobody would know.
Rong's AppCapsule model:
Each app is a self-contained capsule that carries its own loader — its own "startup sequence." When the capsule launches, its loader: Checks the hash of every module — every library, every dependency, every piece of code inside the capsule is verified against a known hash. If a single byte has been tampered with, the capsule refuses to start. This is like a pilot running through a pre-flight checklist before every flight — you don't just trust that the plane is fine because it was fine yesterday.
Cryptographically verifies credentials — the capsule proves it is what it claims to be. Signed by the developer, verified by the Runtime. Not "this file is named PhotoEditor.exe so it's probably the photo editor" — actual cryptographic proof.
Trust nothing — the capsule doesn't trust the network, doesn't trust other apps, doesn't even trust the operating system to have loaded it correctly. It verifies everything itself. This is what "zero trust" actually means — not the marketing buzzword, but the architecture.
Why "The Internet Needs an Operating System"
This is the part most people don't get, and Rong is right to be frustrated. Every PC has an operating system because you need something to:
- Decide which programs can run
- Control what each program can access
- Prevent one program from crashing or corrupting another
- Manage shared resources (memory, disk, network)
Without an OS, your computer would be chaos. Programs would overwrite each other's memory. Any program could read any file. There'd be no security, no stability, no order.
The internet today has no operating system. When you download an app from the web, run a browser extension, execute a smart contract, or deploy an AI agent — there is no equivalent of an OS managing what that code can do. We have:
- Firewalls (partial, blunt)
- Antivirus (reactive, always behind)
- App Store review (centralized, slow, still misses malware)
- Browser sandboxes (limited, constantly bypassed)
But nothing that does what an OS does: enforce boundaries, verify code, scope permissions, and audit actions at a system level across the entire network.
That's what Elastos is. It's the missing operating system for the internet — the thing that sits between untrusted code and your resources, the same way Windows/macOS sits between apps and your hardware.
Rong's Two Points Combined.
Put his two statements together and you get the complete architecture:
Point 1 (AppCapsule): Each app protects itself from the inside — verifying its own integrity, trusting nothing, carrying its own verification logic. This is the capsule being responsible for its own trustworthiness.
Point 2 (Elastos as Internet OS): The system protects the user from the outside — sandboxing every capsule, never letting any app touch secrets directly, enforcing boundaries between capsules. This is the Runtime being responsible for everyone's safety.
It's defense in depth:
- The capsule verifies itself (inside-out)
- The Runtime constrains the capsule (outside-in)
- Neither trusts the other
- The user is protected by both layers
The reason people don't understand this is the same reason people didn't understand why PCs needed operating systems in the 1970s.
Early computers ran one program at a time. Why would you need an OS? Then multitasking arrived, and suddenly you needed process isolation, memory protection, file permissions — an OS. Everyone understood after it became obvious.
The internet is at that same inflection point. We're about to run AI agents, autonomous programs, smart contracts, and personal cloud services — all interacting, all needing access to sensitive data. Without an Internet OS to sandbox and govern them, we're back to the 1970s — one bad program takes down everything.
Rong saw this in 2002.
A blockchain is a consensus computer powered by either permissionless miners (public blockchains) or permissioned miners (consortium blockchains). Multiple blockchain computers are actively running across the Internet today.
To incentivize miners to secure and operate these networks, each blockchain typically issues its own reward token or reward points. There are times when one token must be swapped for another — much like exchanging fiat currencies at an international airport.
The Elastos World Computer offers a neutral cyberspace for all digital tribes, enterprises, communities, and organizations. Designed with a BTC merge-mined mainchain as well as Ethereum-compatible sidechains and friend-chains, the ELA token serves as the core asset for decentralized bridges that seamlessly propagate value across the entire SmartWeb, aka Web3.
In other words, ELA is not positioned to compete with BTC, ETH, or other major cryptocurrencies. Instead, it is designed to facilitate the exchange of all digital assets peer to peer — whether crypto tokens or digital merchandise.
LocalHost (PC2) Directories
====================
Users and developers of WCI will only see their “localhost” PC2.
A WebSpace, mount point of an ElastOS Drive, is a special type of AppCapsule, feeding a named data path, it will return either a "file" endpoint or a "folder/" which one may further traverse downwards. Similar to "folder" in a conventional operating system is a special type of data file, all third-party WCI apps, drives, plugins, and so forth are programs, i.e., AppCapsules.
ElastOS serves as the microkernel of the Elastos World Computer while keeping as much functionality as possible running in WebAssembly sandboxes in the form of AppCapsules. These are apps with their own intrinsic, built-in RTOS, much like their digital twins of the peripheral devices.
Let's take a slightly deeper dive into the ElastOS "file system" path. All WebSpaces are based on content-addressable storage (CAS)—meaning files are located via hash values instead of traditional file paths. Additionally, all files contain metadata, including icons, and are self-describing: they include 256-bit unique IDs and specify which AppCapsules (also identified by 256-bit IDs) should be used to render them. In other words, file paths aren't really necessary, but they make us feeble humans feel more comfortable.
The directories under localhost:// (local root) closely adhere to Windows naming conventions, replacing “Windows” (OS) with “ElastOS,” “Program files (Apps)” with “AppCapsules” (apps), and “WebSpaces” (24x7 data services). The simple reason is that the Elastos World Computer would like to unify its "Drives" and websites into one single straight forward expression.
WebSpaces are a special type of AppCapsules that dynamically interpret the named data after the “://“ delimiter, which often aren’t actually static files on hard drives.
Different users will cache a WebSpace differently in their respective ~/.AppData directories, for instance, the WeChat database would be unique for each user.
localhost://
├───AppCapsules (Apps, C:\Program Files)
├───ElastOS (C:\Windows)
├───Local (C:\Temp)
├───MyWebSite (Optional for browsers)
├───PC2Host (C:\Intel, Hardware Host)
├───Public (C:\Public Folder for the World)
├───Users (C:\Users Home Directories)
├───UsersAI (Agentic AI's Home Directories)
└───WebSpaces (C:\ and D:\ Drives, C:\Program Files x86)
No more recursive traversal of file or URL paths. Instead, simply provide the WebSpace daemon with the named data moniker, and it will return the meta-class object of the capsule or otherwise.
Palantir refers to the meta-class-based programming paradigm as “Ontology,” a term I coined as the metadata-driven-remoting approximately two decades ago. I hope to bring the old Elastos Runtime back to life once we have the WCI running successfully, so that we could have an Android-compatible PC2 backend orchestrating native digital twins actuators.
Ideally, the PC2 host should run only one program: Elastos. All other software should come from trusted vendors the user already relies on, such as Microsoft (Windows), Apple (macOS), NVIDIA, and similar.
Since all WCI AppCapsules execute inside WebAssembly sandboxes, the Elastos super app (running on Linux) would expose only a finite, fixed set of functionalities. In other words, the system calls that can be trapped below the WebAssembly sandboxes are permanently defined, allowing us to harden both Elastos and the underlying Linux kernel directly in the BIOS/UEFI firmware. The hardware would then provide instant-on capability while shrinking the attack surface to an absolute minimum.
Potentially, we could partner with a DePIN team to help design such hardware once the Elastos WCI gains traction.
Hey everyone, wishing you a great day! Here's a quick update video run through of our new portal for updates and transparency as we built out ElastOS, your sovereign cloud OS! Thankyou to all who support us and the ELA mission.
@SimpleXChat Always liked SimpleX chat, thank you for your incredible work!
Would it be possible for you guys to release the app to the Internet OS, ElastOS?❤️🔥
ElastOS sovereign cloud with Elacity dDRM markets, a peer to peer economy:
- Run your own cloud OS with decentralised login from anywhere in the world
- Trade tokenised access rights directly from creators smart contracts
- Payments immediately settled to tokenised royalty holders
- Encrypted data downloaded and owned p2p on IPFS file storage system
- Playback inside WASM media player which validates blockchain rights and gets licence key from distributed network.
Now scale this up for every type of asset mixed with agentic support on your own cloud - own your data + distribution. This is digital freedom being realised. https://t.co/I3Pc8zLDr8
@balajis let's grow this into a network state? @buildonbase USDC markets?
@sash__mit I can’t wait to test Elacity Dapp on WCI, to be able to download the digital assets that I bought, and actually own them on my hardware! Incredible!
The app looks great to!🥰
ElastOS v1.1 is underway 🔥
Faster remote access for home nodes, more reliable self-recovering connections, large file streaming upgrades, stronger IPFS privacy for personal files, and a simpler one command install with auto hardware setup.
More➡️https://t.co/jtEuHQMlpI