Whitepaper_English - acetronaut/wiki GitHub Wiki

Abstract

Since the introduction of Ethereum in 2014 there has been great interest in decentralised trustless applications (smart contracts). Consequently, many have tried to implement applications with real world data on top of a Blockchain. We believe that storing the application’s state and code on-chain is wrong for several reasons. This bloat's the chain size, exposes smart-contracts to unnecessary vulnerabilities, and reduces privacy, thus preventing the access of Blockchains for private uses cases.

This is why aeternity is being developped as the only Blockchain that can by its core design sustain mainstream world use cases.

  • It can handle large throughput (more than Visa) thanks to its integrated state channels.

  • The state channels processing off-chain make smart contracts easier to analyze, faster to process, and more private, while not sustaining any substantial loss in functionality.

  • It's internal consensus mechanism can check the oracle and provide the Blockchain with real world data, negating the need to implement inefficient oracle mechanisms on top of it (such as Augur or Gnosis on top of Ethereum).

Applications like markets for synthetic assets and prediction markets can be efficiently implemented at global scale. Several parts have proof-of-concept implementations written in Erlang. Development tools and application essentials such as a wallet, naming and identity system will soon be provided.

Download the entire white paper v0.1 (PDF) here: Æternity whitepaper

Authors:
Zackary Hess - [email protected]
Yanislav Malahov - [email protected]
Jack Pettersson - [email protected]

Published February 6, 2017