Aeternity is a blockchain made for decentralized applications (Dapps). According to its website, Aeternity blockchain is a scalable smart contract platform built to answer some fundamental challenges suffered in previously built blockchains. The Aeternity blockchain is redesigned as a protocol. Thus, the team has successfully integrated a set of functionalities into it.

According to its whitepaper, the three core issues from which a blockchain is suffering are:

The Aeternity protocol seeks to deliver the power to tokenize both real-world and virtual assets, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) such as real estate, certifications, collectibles, and fungible tokens such as cryptocurrencies loyalty points in-game points. Further, the protocol has named its smart contract language ‘Sophia’.

To access the features of blockchain, the protocol requires a fee that the users and developers provide through AEon, which is the native cryptocurrency of Aeternity protocol. AE denotes the ticker of the Aeon. AEon is used as a payment mechanism for any resource when a user consumes on the protocol. The genesis block, which is said to be the first block of the blockchain, is determined via smart contract on Ethereum. Future aeon coins intend to be created via mining. Moreover, the protocol uses a hybrid proof of work and proof of stake consensus mechanism.

The idea of the Aeternity protocol was initiated in 2016. The blockchain was launched in 2018. The first AE token was minted in 2019. The protocol’s whitepaper was released on January 23, 2017. The team behind the protocol includes Owen O’Driscoll as lead ambassador, Tsvetan Kolev as a senior designer, Michal Zajda, Artur Kratt, Dimitar Ivanov as core developers, and Ingmar Zechlin as COO.