Æternity Blockchain Developers Take on Ethereum with Final Hardfork

Scheduled hard fork adds improved Virtual Machine, governance, and naming system

LIECHTENSTEIN -- November 5, 2019  -- The core development team for Æternity, a next-generation, open-source blockchain for building decentralized applications, today announced its LIMA hardfork, releasing the latest software to miners and in fact, handing over governance to the community. The third major æternity protocol upgrade this year, LIMA adds a sophisticated, improved Virtual Machine, governance, and naming system to challenge Ethereum and other blockchain platforms. Æternity is one of the most active blockchain developer communities measured by code activity. Core developers proposed hardfork, LIMA software release to miners, who will mine or not mine fork of aeternity blockchain.

The LIMA protocol upgrade introduces the Fast Æternity Transaction Engine, or FATE, a Virtual Machine optimized for æternity smart contracts. This powerful Virtual Machine outperforms other blockchain networks with better efficiency and 10 times less gas consumption, giving developers the advantage of low fees, even when scaling quickly. 

This upgrade delivers improvements to state channels, which the æternity network relies on to power scalability. Built into æternity’s first layer, opening a lightweight state channel is a simple transaction, with computation completed by a trusted node. Once set up, state channel users do not need to pay fees or spend gas to execute smart contracts and transactions. All communications are private until published on-chain in the case of a dispute or after the closing of the channel. 

In addition, LIMA introduces æternity’s next level of decentralized governance and the completion of its full migration from Ethereum to the æternity blockchain. Initially created as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, the AE token has now fully migrated to the æternity Mainnet. This was made possible in part by Generalized Accounts, which make æternity highly flexible and let developers create smart contracts that can verify transactions. 

The LIMA upgrade introduces an improved on-chain governance aepp. Since weak voter participation is a major challenge for many blockchain projects, the æternity community has introduced a delegated voting system to allow token holders to download or host a simple, mobile-optimized blockchain application to propose votes or participate in the voting process. 

“æternity grew from a team of core developers to an ecosystem built by its community, for its community, which makes this protocol upgrade a step forward in the project’s mission. The launch of the on-chain governance system also marks a new era for æternity blockchain,” said Yanislav Malahov, Founder of æternity. “In addition, the FATE VM and improved state channels are part of the æternity community’s ongoing goal to create a user-friendly blockchain platform for building decentralized applications that scale.” new era, launch of on-chain governance system

Lastly, the LIMA upgrade launches the official æternity naming system, .chain. Names will be auctioned and can be mapped to any address on æternity blockchain, in the network and beyond. They do not rely on a second-layer solution like other platforms, and can be used within smart contracts to point to accounts that represent accounts, oracles, and state channels. 

For more information on æternity blockchain and the hard fork, please visit https://aeternity.com/. 

About æternity

æternity is a public, open-source blockchain protocol that enables a platform for next-generation decentralized applications and high scalability. Its core components are written in the functional programming language Erlang, and its smart contracts are also functional. Unlike other blockchain platforms, the æternity protocol itself incorporates several essential technological features, including a recently upgraded virtual machine, off-chain scaling solution - state channels, on-chain governance mechanism, and naming system. æternity also features SDKs in Javascript, GO, Phyton, Java, as well as a middleware and a development suite that streamlines smart contract development. For more information, please visit https://aeternity.com/.