Aeternity is a public, open-source, blockchain-based distributed computing and digital-asset platform that builds upon decentralized cryptographic P2P technology.
The project wants to create an ecosystem that has transparent governance with efficiency and global scalability for smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps).
The company launched a successful ICO in 2017, raising over $24 000 000 dollars during its duration.
Using the Aeternity blockchain is not free, however, and users have to pay for any resources they use via the native token called Aeon
The Aeon will be the utility token for the smart contracts. All of the contracts will settle in Aeon and they will also be used to pay for transaction fees on the network. Hence, they operate much like ETH in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Naming System enables user-friendly identities for blockchain entities, such as user accounts, oracles, contracts, etc.Entities native to most blockchain systems are addressed or identified by their hashes, which are generally N-bit numbers displayed in a hex or base64/base58 notation, all of which are somewhat unfriendly to the humans trying to use these systems. Through its Naming System, æternity enables user-friendly identities and addresses, improving usability, reducing chances of misspelling identities and increasing the adoption of the platform.
An oracle connects real-world data with smart contracts. æternity's oracles are truly first-class objects on the blockchain.What if the fulfillment of a smart contract depends on weather conditions, a share price, or other public information from the real world? Oracles can provide tamper-proof data upon which contracts can act. Election results, the prices of assets such as gold, weather conditions and many other real-world data play a crucial role for many business applications.
State channels make it possible to execute smart contracts off-chain. The blockchain enforces the smart contract code, only in the case of a disagreement between the contracting parties.A network of state channels enables the exchange of value with anybody in the world in a trust-free way. Participants interact privately with each other. Businesses have their records off-chain and hidden from public sight. Participants can have infinite real-time transactions and handle use cases that require very high volumes of transactions.
Aeternity powers Turing-complete smart contracts that allow the execution of credible transactions without third parties and intermediaries.The design and implementation of æternity blockchain focus on making the execution of smart contracts safe, efficient and economic. Aeternity supports multiple virtual machines:
Æternity uses a hybrid Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. The block-order will be determined via Proof-of-Work. Certain system variables will be determined via on-chain prediction market system, which allows the users to participate and bring in their knowledge. For the PoW algorithm, Aeternity currently favors a variant of Tromp’s Cuckoo Cycle, one which is memory bound, and also is an ”indirectly useful Proof-of-Work”, as it requires less electricity to run, but instead has another limiting factor, the one of memory latency availability. This also makes it feasible to mine with a smart phone.
As of August 2019, All AE tokens are currently undergoing an elaborate, multi-phase token swap. The ERC-20 tokens are storable in pretty much all wallets where you can store Ethereum in. More information about the migration can be found here. Currently, one of the few official wallets that support the mainnet version of the AE token is the Ledger, along with a few other.
The Ledger Nano S is one of the best wallets out there, and even though it's not exactly dirt cheap, you can't put a price tag on the security it offers.
The first step towards setting up your device is unboxing your device and checking if you have received all the accessories coming with it. Once you have it unboxed, you need to configure it and initialize it before being able to use it. The process is quite simple and will hardly take about 20-30 minutes post which you will be set to use your Ledger Nano S device.
Once you have done that, you should plug-in your device in your desktop or laptop using the USB cable. Now you need to follow the instructions displayed on the screen with the help of the instruction sheet received in the box. Remember, this is the most important step, and you will be initializing your device with a seed. This seed is everything. You need to guard it with your life because using this seed anyone can steal your coins. This is also known as recovery phrase. Always store your recovery phrase on an offline sheet. The final step before you can use your cold storage is setting up the apps associated with it. The video below explains in detail how it's done:here
Unfortunately, buying Aeon directly with credit card is not available at any of the established brokers we trust. You can buy some BTC/ETH through Coinbase.
Coinbase is a convenient and cheap way to buy ETH or BTC (if avaliable in your country). Coinbase will charge a fee of between 1.49% and 3.99% depending on your payment method (credit cards have a higher fee than wire transfers). The buying process itself is very simple. Just create and account and add your payment method, then go to the Buy/Sell section and simply input the amount you wish to buy.
Once you're all set, you can send your ETH or BTC over to Binance and exchange it for AE.
NOTE: Its is unclear which exchange is selling which version of the token, so it is wise to ask before buying.
