Introduction to the Aeternity blockchain project

AeternitySupport

New Member
Mar 13, 2017
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Hello everyone, I would like to present you the aeternity blockchain project.

Æternity is a new blockchain - designed for fast and secure smart contracts interfacing with real-world data via a decentralized

oracle. Scalability is achieved by using (trustless) Turing-complete state channels, a major difference to Ethereum. This way the

smart contracts also become easier to analyze and more secure. The interface to real-world data is done via an innovative oracle design, which is based on prediction markets. State channels increase scalability since all transactions become independent and can thus be processed in parallel. Additionally,

this means that contracts never write to shared state, greatly simplifying their testing and verification.

Æternity will be powered by the æternity token (AE symbol, also 'æon').

Æternity tokens are used as payment for any resources one consumes on the platform, as well as the basis for applications implemented

on the platform.

The distribution of æternity token [AE] in the genesis block will be determined by a smart contract hosted on Ethereum.


Æternity tokens will be managed by accounts which will have an address and balance, implemented alongside a alias (naming) system

which will support human-friendly names mapped to an aeternity address.


Æternity identities are essentially a triple of (pubkey, hash, name). Pubkey from the account, name from the alias and hash

linking to further data, e.g. on IPFS.


Link to the scientific paper can be found HERE.


CONSENSUS AND GOVERNANCE

• Hybrid Proof-of-Work Proof-of-Stake blockchain
• Consensus achieved by PoW mining
• Algo: 'Cuckoo Cycle' by Tromp: GITHUB WHITEPAPER BLOG
• Minable with even with smart phones achieving highest possible decentralization
• Governance via PoS prediction markets
• Prediction markets are proven to very good tools to destill information out of a crowd of people. Better then simple voting!


TRANSACTION SPEED ESTIMATES
Trustless off-chain transaction speed: infinite and only limited by the speed of light as these transactions are inside state channels

•On-chain transaction speed: We define following variables for the following calculations:

B = block size in bytes
F = blocks till finality
R = time till finality in seconds
T = transaction size in bytes

The variables that define the protocol are all constantly being updated by the consensus/governance. From their initial default
values, we can calculate the initial default rate of transactions per second.

Transactions per second = B F / (T R)

B = 1000000 bytes = 1 megabyte per block
R / F = 30 seconds per block
R = 243600 seconds per day
F = 2460*2 blocks per day
T = 1000 bytes per transaction


1000000 ∗ 24 ∗ 60 ∗ 2/1000/24 ∗ 3600 = 1000000 / 1000 / 30 = about 32 on-chain transactions per second, which would be
fast enough to sign up every human with state channel technology within 8 years.

These variables will be determined by token holders (PoS Governance).

For further details read the æternity blockchain whitepaper: Sec. E(4): Transactions per second at a given memory requirements

TATE CHANNELS

æternity’s blockchain leverages state channels which makes smart contracts faster, more secure and more private.
  • First, two users open up a state channel via depositing some AE tokens into it.

  • They can agree to arbitrary smart contracts. This allows for transactions to be conducted as fast as information can be
    transmitted and processed by the parties, instead of them having to wait until the transaction has been validated—and potentially
    finalized— by the blockchain’s consensus mechanism.

  • This æternity blockchain is used to settle the final outcome or to resolve conflicts that arise.
It’s decisions are foreseeable, thereby ruling out malicious activity between parties who try to erode the state channels to
which they’ve written and previously agreed to.

The transfer of æon is the only effect channels can have on the blockchain, only those æon that have been deposited into the
state channel can be transferred. This makes all channels independent from each other, which has the immediate benefit that
any transactions related to channels can be processed in parallel, greatly improving transaction throughput.


SMART CONTRACTS

æternity uses a Turing-complete (new) virtual machine with MAST (Merkelized Abstract Syntax Trees) to process smart contracts.
Within æternity, smart contracts are pure functions in the form of financial agreements that distribute funds according to
predetermined rules. MAST enables that, in case a smart contract needs to be enforced by the blockchain, only the relevant part
of the smart contract needs to be published, achieving again higher scalability and confidentiality.

  • Only the involved parties know about the contract

  • Only parties that have an open state channel can create a valid contract

  • Every state change or code update gets signed by both counterparties of the contract

  • It is only submitted to the blockchain if its outcome is disputed, in which case the code is only ever stored as part of
    the submitted transaction, never in any other state.

  • If this happens, the blockchain distributes the tokens according to the contract and closes the channel.
IMPLEMENTATION
æternity core blockchain code is written in Erlang, which makes it easy to write distributed,
fault-tolerant, soft real-time, highly available, non-stop applications. Erlang is the perfect language to write a blockchain
from scratch and by using it, we achieve a superior operational stability and performance.


WEB AND MOBILE INTEGRATION
æternity is 'mobile first', which is true because of the convergence of mobile and web
technologies and new mining algo which is even efficiently minable on smart phones.
A Javascript library and REST APIs for engaging with the core blockchain will make the integration into existing web/mobile apps
or services easier.
ReactJS will be the framework of choice two write reusable modules in, for the UI. These modules can easily be reused on the web,
as well as on mobile, and even compile down to native apps on mobile, becoming more snappy.

Also an Ethereum and Bitcoin bridge via Cosmos/Polkadot is planned.


ROADMAP
  • Q1-Q3 2017 – Start and development

  • Q1 2017 – Testnet and launch

  • Q1-Q2 2017 – Public announcement, backing campaign

  • Q4 2017 – Security audit

  • Q1 2018 – Mainnet launch

The testnet is LIVE, give it a try!

Information about the æternity team can be found HERE.


We are constantly adding team members, check out our website and blog for the most recent information.


GET IN TOUCH with us:


Bitcointalk thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1733140.0


____________________________________________________________________________
Bounty thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1819473.0

____________________________________________________________________________

We also can be found on QQ, wechat, IRC and more... Join us now and help build the future together.



Regards,
The æternity team.
 

AeternitySupport

New Member
Mar 13, 2017
2
0

Security, Transparency, Simplicity
Development Contributions for the Æternity Blockchain

We are pleased to announce the details on how to contribute to the development of æternity blockchain! In the process of the contribution the AE token will be created and distributed to the contributors.

In order to achieve highest possible security, transparency and simplicity, æternity uses simple smart contracts (multi-signature escrow contracts) on Ethereum in order to collect the ETH contributions and handle them.

TRANSPARENCY WINS
Another goal of this campaign is to get the global community involved as soon as possible, to foster growth of the æternity ecosystem. We want to be as decentralized as possible, don’t want to exclude anybody who believes in the technological proposition of æternity blockchain and want to support its development. We believe that this is essential for long-term growth.

As a result the contribution campaign will be split into two phases.

Phase 1 — Public “Friends, Family and Real Innovators” Round
Starting on April 3rd, 13:05 GMT and lasting for 3 days [72 hours] until April 6th, 13:05 GMT. During this period, 1 ETH contribution will receive 1000 AE tokens. Anyone can participate!

Launch bonus for phase one: 100 (hundred) AE bonus per 1 ETH send in the first 24h!

Phase 2 — Public “Early Adopter” Round
Target date: 45 days after first round.
Duration: 3 weeks

Week 1: 1 ETH contribution receives 750 AE token.
Week 2: 1 ETH contribution receives 700 AE token.
Week 3: 1 ETH contribution receives 650 AE token.

Launch bonus for phase two: 50 (fifty) AE bonus per 1 ETH send in the first 24h!

Direct contributions are possible with ETH. For contributions with BTC or fiat, please get in touch with our partner Bitcoin Suisse. For contributions via other cryptocurrencies we suggest to use ShapeShift to fund the æternity contribution wallet.

All contributions happen in a publicly transparent and tamper-proof way (‘public receipt’) on the Ethereum blockchain. After the contribution campaign, the AE token will be created based on the public receipts. 82% of the initial æternity AE tokens will be distributed to the contributors. 1% will be allocated to people who hold BTC or ETH, accessible when the æternity blockchain launches. Time-locked via a multi-sig escrow contract, 17% will get allocated to Aeternity Anstalt, the foundation and the founding team.

As for security, please, do NOT send from an exchange account to the æternity contribution account! Use the æternity wallet, which is optimized to make the contribution process as easy as possible. Alternatively, you can use your ETH wallet, just make sure that you are the only one who has access to your private key. The escrow partners will be announced shortly.

Æternity Meets Ledger Nano S

The first 1000 contributors above 12 ETH will receive 1 limited edition æternity branded Ledger Nano S hardware wallet. Shipping costs will need to be covered by the contributor. Note that this perk is limited to one wallet per contributor and one per physical (delivery) address.

SIMPLICITY IS KEY
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE?


1. Between April 3rd and April 6th, go to aeternity.com and press the contribute button on the home page.

2. Fund the wallet with ETH (or view alternatives for contributions with other currencies, such as BTC or fiat). If you want to contribute with fiat, you should get in touch up front (now) with Bitcoin Suisse.

3. Accept the Terms and Conditions.

4. Contribute! You will be able to view your AE contribution on the Ethereum blockchain. You will have the opportunity to write a 160 character message, which will be embedded into the æternity genesis block and last forever.

IN MORE DETAIL
FIRST CONTRIBUTION PHASE — THE BEGINNING
FOR FRIENDS OF ÆTERNITY AND REAL INNOVATORS

  • Start date: Monday, April 3rd, 2017.
  • Start time: 13:05 GMT.
  • Duration: 3 days, exact 72h, by blocktime.
  • All will be recorded on the ETH blockchain by a multisig-escrow-contract.
  • Ratio: 1 ETH contribution yields 1,000 (one thousand) AE contribution receipts.
  • A special æternity wallet will be launched.
  • After these 3 days, the first phase of contribution acceptance is over.
  • All following transactions will be 10% donated to non-blockchain open-source projects and 90% sent back to the sender, per transaction. No receipts are given for transactions which are included in a block before or after the official start and end.
INCUBATION PHASE
  • There will be 45 days in between phase 1 and phase 2.
  • Much will happen during this time. E.g. hackathons, meetups and at least one conference will be organized, bringing together the community in every continent of the world to hack on æternity. The best teams and projects will be supported by the Æternity Open Source Foundation, which is in formation process.
SECOND CONTRIBUTION PHASE — EVOLUTION
FOR EARLY ADOPTERS

  • Start time: 45 days after the completion of phase 1 (target date).
  • Duration: 3 weeks.
  • Ratio: 1 ETH contribution yields 800 (eight hundred) AE contribution receipts (maximum at the start). It goes down to 650 at the end of phase 2.
  • Additional perks for the first contributors: will be announced.
  • All will be recorded on the ETH blockchain by a multisig-escrow-contract (like in phase 1).
CONTRIBUTION SECURITY CHECK
The migration to transferable AE token smart contract.
  • After both contribution campaigns end, an AE token smart contract will be created on Ethereum, which will mirror the contributions in a verifiable way. Mirror, as in copy the contributions and AE token ownership over to the new blockchain. Open-source tools to check and verify the contribution transfers will be provided.
  • After successful migration, the launch of the transferable AE tokens will take place and become official. One single smart contract will keep track of the AE contributions on Ethereum until æternity mainnet launches.
CONTRIBUTION DISRUPTION — THE BIRTH OF THE AE TOKEN
  • After phase 1 and 2 have concluded and after the successful security audit, the AE tokens become freely usable (transferable), not only good for beta-testing æternity UX with AE tokens.
  • Shipment of the æternity ledger wallets commences.
FURTHER TOKEN OUTLOOK
DEVELOPMENT PHASE & LAUNCH OF THE ÆXPERIMENTS with AE tokens on æpp space.
The AE tokens on Ethereum will be used to power experimental aepps, which will give visual insights into how the æternity ecosystem will work and play together. JS-libraries and other tools will be build.

MAIN BLOCKCHAIN LAUNCH: TOKEN METAMORPHOSIS & BIRTH OF A NEW ECOSYSTEM
  • Migration of AE tokens to the æternity blockchain occurs.
  • Launch of aepps.com essentials and platform.
  • Predict!
  • Mine!
  • Use!

For more information about æternity blockchain, have a look at www.aeternity.com

Original blog post: https://blog.aeternity.com/security-transparency-simplicity-1411fad10974#.k8dfvbiav

Regards,
The aeternity team