Published on Feb 21, 2020
æternity is a public, open-source, blockchain-based distributed computing and digital-asset platform that builds upon decentralized cryptographic P2P technology. Real-world data can interface with smart contracts through decentralized "oracles". Scalability and trustless Turing-complete state channels set æternity apart from other Blockchain 2.0 projects.
æternity provides a virtual machine which can execute scripts using an decentralized global network of public nodes maintaining the blockchain. State channels enable smart contracts to remain private and scalable as long as there is no disagreement between the counterparties. Inherently integrated in æternity is a value token called an "æon" or "AE token", which can be transferred between participants and is used to compensate participant nodes for computations performed.[citation needed] AE tokens are used to pay for space and computation time on the virtual machine and prevent spam on the network while allocating storage and computation time proportionally to the incentive offered by the request.
æternity's blockchain is governed via a hybrid Proof-of-Work and Proof of Stake consensus mechanism. Tokens can be transferred between parties of a smart contract through channels without storing the code of the contract on-chain. The public blockchain resolves dispute inside state channels, acting like a crypto-court.
æternity can program complex relationships for large numbers of users and handle high volumes of products and information in parallel. Only the parties who participate in a state channel smart contract know of its contents. When a channel is settled on-chain, it only changes the blockchain state by changing account balances. No contract state is stored on-chain, so all channels are independent from each other. Transaction speed is limited only by bandwidth, so the æternity system can scale as well as or even better than known centralized solutions available today.[citation needed
Large throughput and relative privacy enables the use of æternity by enterprises, and it can be the main vector of micro-transactions needed for all internet-of-things use cases. In the same time this will make smart contracts easier to analyze and faster to process, with no substantial loss in functionality.
æternity held a first contribution campaign round in which the team collected 121,212 Ethers and 324 Bitcoins, the rough equivalent of 5,400,000 USD at the time, in exchange for AE tokens. ] A second round was scheduled for 29 May 2017, in which the team's ambition was to raise a maximum capped amount of 21,000,000 CHF (21,500,000 USD) via BTC and ETH
State channels are a new development of æternity's blockchain technology.[citation needed] They are based on the idea of payment channels. State channels come from the realization that, for most purposes, only the actors involved in a smart contract are required to know about it. Two or more actors lock a state and a contract on the blockchain and then perform signed transactions between themselves, off of the public network (or off-chain). The final state is then written to the blockchain. If the end result is disputed, the series of signed off-chain transactions can be uploaded to the blockchain for verification or dispute resolution.
The state channel design enables off-chain verification of data and smart contracts. This permits a high transactional throughput and parallel processing of smart contracts by allowing for their independence from the network. æternity's strengths lie in programming complex relationships for many users and the parallel handling of high volumes of products and information. State channels allow for increased privacy because parties participating in a smart contract know about the contents of that smart contract.[citation needed] When a channel is settled on-chain, the only information being put onto the Blockchain is the end result of the transactional value that was exchanged. No contract state is stored on-chain, so all channels are independent of each other. Transaction speed is limited only by bandwidth, so æternity's scalable smart contract systems improves upon all the centralized and de-centralized scaling solutions that are available today
