What does the ELA coin do on the platform? Does it have any utility?
Yes, ELA is an "utility" coin instead of a "security"
The Elastos blockchain really only serves one function, being the ID system needed to connect into the Elastos intranet. The blockchain doesn’t need to scale as it’s just storing simple IDs. This is important as unlike other platform blockchains like ETH etc which are trying to push millions of transactions through the blockchain (thus resulting in ballooning ledgers and scaling issues), here transactions go through the decentralised secure P2P network not the blockchain, so no scaling issues. Incentive for DApps to use Elastos does not come from an incentive to use the Elastos blockchain itself, this isn’t Ethereum. DApps are incentivised to use the Elastos operating system/P2P infrastructure and using its blockchain for decentralised IDs is a requirement to use that.
Other use cases are as follows:
Dapps will be paying in ELA for the services they'll be using like cloud services, DNS services, acquisition of UUIDs for digital assets, etc
Elastos ecosystem collaboration projects(dapps built on Elastos in collaboration with Elastos) have to lock no less than 2-5% of their project tokens published for converting into ELA. 20% of the project tokens(converted to ELA) will be used for Elastos foundation development. 80% of the actual project tokens will be rewards shared by all ELA holders. Eg. If a dapp decides to create 10 billion of tokenX, at least 200 million will be distributed. Out of these 200 million, 40 million will be converted to ELA and given to the Elastos foundation. The rest 160 million will be distributed to all ELA holders. So, if you are holding 300 ELA and the supply of all ela holders adds up to 10 million(locked and unlocked ela both), you’ll get approximately 4800 of tokenX airdropped to you for free.
Users can use ELA to register an ID in Elastos and use this ID to purchase items such as DApps, cloud storage and many other resources, including other digital products and so on.
Those who decide to lock their ELA(minimum of 300) will earn an interest of 4%, 5%, 6% for up to 3 years(not compounded year-to-year).
ELA will be the main currency that will be used to reward developers for creating dapps on the Elastos platform.
Users can participate in token sale projects and products with ELA within Elastos.
Apps built on elastos can implement their system to process transactions using ela/sela.
And many more…