Technology

Blockchain Technology

A blockchain architecture that is scalable, governable and scriptable.

Learn more about our technology in the Æternity protocol repository on GitHub.

INDUSTRIAL GRADE CODE BASE Our core blockchain code is written in Erlang, which makes it easy to write distributed, fault-tolerant, soft real-time and highly available non-stop applications. Erlang is the perfect choice to write a blockchain from scratch allowing to achieve superior operational stability and performance.

BLOCKCHAIN NETWORKS æternity technology is free to use and easy to incorporate. Open Source (ISC) licensed modules will allow easy implementation in blockchain consortiums and will enable free and open access for developers to be able to build on the æternity platform. Cross-chain atomic swaps do the rest.

AE TOKEN AE are the access tokens to the æternity network and act as a unit of account for the resources spent on æternity. Furthermore, AE tokens are the energy for any application implemented on the platform. The initial amount of AE for the genesis block will be determined by a smart contract on Ethereum.

STATE CHANNELS State channels enable highly scalable, trustless transactions of value and purely functional, easily verifiable turing-complete smart contracts. State channels effortlessly support an immense throughput of transactions. The execution as well as settlement happens off-chain. In other words: They are one-to-one- sidechains, where the blockchain acts as a public crypto court.

ORACLES A crucial feature for most contracts, whether encoded as text or as code, is the ability to refer to values from the environment. The æternity Oracle Machine provides real-world data to the blockchain. Each user can ask questions about the environment and the oracle provides the answer. The consensus mechanism comes into play in case of disagreement.

SCRIPTING LANGUAGES Aeternity has a high-level, OCaml based scripting language, Sophia, which can be formally verified, and a simpler language, Varna. Both natively support aeternity's first-class objects, such as contracts and oracles. While Sophia is more sophisticated, the gas usage of Varna contracts can be accurately estimated at compile time. Powerful, sophisticated contracts can be executed in both languages.

NAMES (DNS) In the vein of Aaron Swartz’ work and Namecoin, æternity features an easy to use name system, that is both decentralized and secure, while still supporting human-friendly, memorable names. The blockchain’s state includes a mapping from unique human-friendly strings to fixed-size byte arrays, which are individually customizable.

ACCOUNTS & IDENTITY æternity's accounts are permission-less, but still allow customization. Create and own your identity on the æternity network - then use it everywhere on the web!