What is æternity?

æternity is a new type of blockchain that innovates and expands upon existing platforms such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Augur. Real-world data can interface with smart contracts through decentralized oracles. True scalability and trustless Turing-complete state channels setti æternity apart from Ethereum.

æternity is unique in many ways, but the key features are:

• Hybrid PoW/PoS;
• Oracle Machine;
• State Channels, or "Off-chain transactions" will allow for both faster transaction time as well as improving anonymity when sending and receiving transactions;
• Governance;
• Address naming system;

What is the purpose of æternity?

æternity seeks to present a highly scalable blockchain architecture with a consensus mechanism that is used to support the oracle machine. In other words, the goal is to create blockchain that is as efficient and cost effective as possible. Through use of the oracle machine, we can avoid the unnecessary layering of one consensus mechanism on top of another. Through state channel integration, privacy and scalability will be improved. Tokens in these state channels can be transferred using purely functional smart contracts that have access to network-wide oracle answers. By not storing the contract code or state on the blockchain, we are able to make smart contracts easier to analyze and faster to process, with no substantial loss in de facto functionality.

What is blockchain?

In short, a blockchain is a secure ledger distributed among participant's computers and in this case, governed only by the æternity software. More generally, a blockchain is essentially a distributed database that contains a constantly growing chronological list of unchangeable transaction records called "blocks". Each block in the chain consists of bundled transaction data that is cryptographically hashed. In order to prevent tampering of the recorded data in the chain, each block is time-stamped and linked to the previous block in the chain. Typically each node, or computer connected to the blockchain network, is charged with creating and validating new blocks using various consensus algorithms. Once new blocks are validated, they are appended to the chain. In this way blockchains serve as the complete record of all transactions on the network from the genesis block to the most recently completed block.

What is special about æternity and how does it compare to other blockchains?

(Focus on Oracles, practicality, flexibility, the AE court, state channels)

æternity is built for scalable smart contracts that can interface with real-world data through oracles. Other smart contract platforms experiment with 3rd party oracle machines added on top of the consensus; this is inefficient and unnecessary. In contrast, the æternity oracle is fully integrated into the consensus mechanism and delivers deterministic values (from legacy systems or other blockchains) with which smart contracts may interact. Thus, the oracle system offers real-world data to be instantly implemented in æternity smart contracts and, in so doing, enables countless business use cases.

What is an Oracle?

Oracle is a mechanism to teach the blockchain true facts about our world. This is a virtual machine that crowd-sources real-time answers to specific questions using principles of Prediction Markets. It can also be used to negotiate fundamental changes on how the system functions, allowing for high adaptability to market demands and other developments. Good examples include weather conditions, currency valuation, competition results, and any other information accessible to the public.

More details

What are State Channels?

The State Channel design enables off-chain, or off-network, verification of data and smart contracts. If the verification in the channel fails, the blockchain is asked to resolve. This mechanism permits a high transactional throughput and parallel processing of smart contracts by allowing for their independence from the network. Hence, æternity's strengths lie in the programmability of complex relationships for large numbers of users and in the parallel handling of high volumes of products and information. State channels allow for increased privacy in that only the parties participating in a smart contract know about the contents of that smart contract. When a channel is settled on-chain, the only information being put onto the blockchain is the transactional value that was exchanged. No contracting 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 the centralized scaling solutions that are available today.

--Taken from here

For more information refer to State Channel. Also see State Channels.

How does æternity work?

• Governance & æternity

(High-level, also describe the proof system, state channels):

What are AE Tokens and how are they used and consumed?

The æternity (AE) token will be used to pay for resources consumed through the platform, as well as "gas" used to power applications built on top of it.

All æternity (AE) tokens will be distributed via the genesis block through an ERC20 Ethereum smart contract, and at a later stage by mining.

How can æternity be used?

Toll API: Payment channels allow for a new kind of API, where one pays for every call to the API, possibly every HTTP-request. Paying to access an API solves DDoS problems, and it makes it easier to build high-quality APIs that are always available.

Stable value assets: Smart contracts and oracles can be used in combination to program synthetic assets that stay nearly the same price as a real world asset.

Event contracts: Event contracts pay when an event happens and don’t pay when an event does not happen according to the oracle’s telling. Event contracts can be used as the basis for many other types of useful applications such as encouraging whistleblowing and supporting prediction markets.

Micro-payments: æternity's state channels will allow for off-chain, peer-to-peer payments that will open up many revenue generation possibilities for content creators and publishers. While micropayments are currently possible on other blockchains, tx/min and block size limitations prevent many current blockchains from being able to handle micropayments at scale.

P2P Bandwidth Sales: State channel supported payments could allow for compensation-based sharing of wi-fi hotspots. Think of it like an Uber-for-wi-fi. Anyone could offer wi-fi to anyone else via their mobile phone for a price.

Like any platform, the potential applications are limited only by the imagination of the user base.

Purchasing and acquiring æternity:

The first round available to purchase AE tokens was during æternity's public 'Friends, Family and Real Innovators' round which took place on 3rd April 2017, 13:05 GMT and lasted for 72 hours until 6th April 13:05 GMT. This round was open to the public, meaning anyone could participate. At this time, you were able to buy 1000 AE tokens for 1 ETH. Investors in the first 24 hours received an extra 10% for a total of 1100 AE tokens for 1 ETH and the first 1000 contributors above 12 ETH will receive 1 'limited edition' æternity branded Ledger.

The second round will begin 29th May 2017. You can participate as well as follow any updates here: https://wallet.aeternity.com/

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For more info, feel free to check out the Wikipedia page on æternity.