FATE was built specifically to enable safer, faster and cheaper execution of smart contracts on æternity. For comparison, a FATE contract represents only around 10% of the code size of an Ethereum Virtual Machine contract. The 23 different transaction types incorporated into æternity’s core protocol are all supported by FATE.

Additionally, the Lima Release brought next level of governance. With an improved mobile on-chain Governance æpp, AE token users are able to create and participate in polls, as well as to delegate their AE token balance to third parties to vote on their account. To learn more about æternity’s Governance 2.0 approach, visit the Forum topic below.

Last but not least, the Lima hardfork made one of æternity’s most ambitious promises a reality. æternity’s integrated Naming System or AENS is now live and name auctions are ongoing.

Striving to make æternity a user-friendly and easy-to-use blockchain, the development community managed to provide an alternative to public keys through a decentralized naming system. Currently, anyone who has AE tokens can participate in auctions and reserve a human-friendly name for their wallet account, smart contract, oracle, or any string shorter than 256 bits. All names feature the .chain extension.

Learn how to participate in the decentralized name auctions and reserve your .chain name today:

Hundreds of names are already in auction — check them out here.

AE Token Migration

Moving more than 270 million tokens from Ethereum to the æternity Mainnet was not a trivial task. The migration started in October 2018 and was organized in four phases — one preceding the Mainnet launch and each following hardfork. The envisioned migration period was spread over almost one year ending on September 2nd, 2019, when the ERC20 AE tokens became non-transferable. Now, after the last scheduled hardfork has been performed, it is still possible to claim your AE, using a dedicated tool.

Watch this short video to learn how to claim your Mainnet AE tokens:

Furthering Open Source Development: æternity’s Charitable Foundations

As you can imagine, many other things were happening in parallel with the core protocol updates of the æternity blockchain.

In December 2018, æternity launched two foundations, in Liechtenstein and Bulgaria, with the aim to provide grants and educational support to innovative blockchain projects.

The æternity Foundation in Bulgaria works on entering partnerships with universities and other educational institutions with a focus on Bulgaria and the Balkans.

æternity Crypto Foundation’s team.

Meanwhile, the Liechtenstein-based æternity Crypto Foundation primarily centers on supporting research and development efforts in blockchain technology, cryptography, and mathematics. To this end, it provides grants of up to one million CHF, paid in cryptocurrency, to innovative projects that are viewed as having significant potential to further explore and proliferate the benefits and uses of blockchain.

Reports by Crypto Foundation grantees have already been shared in the Forum and can be accessed here:

First Æpps Summit

2019 was kick-started with the First æpps Summit in Antalya. Having the protocol ready, it was time to bring talented developers to build on top of it. Fortunately, we managed to gather a great crowd of developers and to identify who can support the project and how. The event brought together æpp and tool developers, helping them to focus their efforts towards the achievement of shared goals.

The æpps Summit in Antalya laid down the foundation on which the current æpps and dev tools were developed. Currently, æternity’s powerful bundle of tools features:

the Middleware , enabling faster access to node information, blockchain history, and additional queries;

, enabling faster access to node information, blockchain history, and additional queries; Fire Editor , an easy to use Web-IDE for Sophia smart contracts;

, an easy to use Web-IDE for Sophia smart contracts; AEProject , a framework enabling an easy set up of Sophia smart contract projects;

, a framework enabling an easy set up of Sophia smart contract projects; and SDKs in JavaScript, Java, Elixir, Go, Python.

These tools are constantly being updated, enabling support for the latest protocol updates.

Growing the æpps Ecosystem

Despite the disruption caused by consensus-breaking protocol updates, æternity’s decentralized applications ecosystem has been growing strong in the last twelve months.

æternity’s account manager and æpps browser — the Base æpp — has become more stable and user-friendly. It is available on both mobile and desktop devices and currently features Russian, Spanish, and Chinese language support. The Graffiti, Governance, and Migration æpps are all accessible through the Base browser, while the AENS name auctions are available in the app’s “Names” functionality . The Base æpp also supports Ledger hardware wallet integration on desktop.

— has become more stable and user-friendly. It is available on both mobile and desktop devices and currently features Russian, Spanish, and Chinese language support. . The Base æpp also supports Ledger hardware wallet integration on desktop. AMPnet is a white-label, all-in-one platform for running energy cooperatives and energy communities including equity crowdfunding (STO) for renewable sources power plants. AMPnet already have a complete working product built on æternity blockchain including internal depository stablecoin. They already soft-launched their first client and are preparing to launch three more — including a major platform launch with Greenpeace. AMPnet recently won the Shift Conf challenge.

Abend is a token payment solution for the festival and concert industry being built on æternity blockchain. They are currently running a prototype that was tested on a live audience in September 2019. The prototype featured a NFC bracelet for payments using æternity. There were 459 orders for over 160 people.

Crypto Tasks is decentralized freelancing platform built on æternity. It already features an open beta and the team is preparing to migrate 15000 users to the new platform this December.

Cryptic Legends is a token-based card trading game where you collect the right heroes for your party and build your strategy by configuring their skills and equipment. You are the owner of your heroes independently from the developers, able to trade them on an open market, but also use them in future games. Cryptic Legends are currently in open beta and preparing for token presale in January with a full demo on æternity blockchain.

Homeport is a decentralized marketplace for ground station capacity, which operators of satellites or satellite constellations can use to maximize the output of their fleet. Homeport allows them to optimize data session scheduling between the stations and the satellites. Homeport aims to build a global, decentralized space data teleport across free and proprietary frequencies alike, for a variety of satellite operators. They are currently in beta and have a prototype running on æternity Testnet.

TraDEX Social is a combination of user-friendly mining client and a decentralized social trading crypto exchange. Together they constitute the first complete crypto ecosystem that helps users take their first steps in the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. They launched a MVP and are currently testing it with users.

RideSafe is a real-time health solution to the public motorbike sector in the event of an accident. They help riders distribute the cost of care, guarantee trust between the parties, and verify that insurance claims and costs are real. RideSafe launched their beta app and are testing it with 160 riders in Boda Boda and 13 emergency responders in Nairobi, Kenya.

ReCheck is an online service for documents management deployed on æternity. With ReCheck Docs you can register (create hash and timestamp) any PDF document on the blockchain, verify registered documents, transfer securely a file to selected recipient, and track it. You can already test the ReCheck tool.

UTU’s Trust API seamlessly serves up personalized recommendations for trusted service providers on sharing platforms to drive conversion, satisfaction, retention, and trust. They are using advanced machine learning models to tokenize trust on æternity blockchain.

More æpps are currently in development and will be announced soon.

World Cryptonomic Forum

In January æternity organized the first World Cryptonomic Forum — an event dedicated to the socioeconomic impact of blockchain technology. The WCF took place in Vaduz, Liechtenstein and targeted decision-makers, entrepreneurs and investors. It was a special kind of event spearheaded by æternity that aimed to bring together professionals from a variety of spheres and stimulate discussions about the transformational effects that blockchain technology would have on the world.

First On-Chain Governance Vote

The first-ever on-chain vote on æternity — The Block Reward Initiative (BRI) was organized in May 2019. The first poll was aimed at ensuring the sustainability of æternity’s open source development. A voting æpp was released and all AE token users were able to vote on whether ~0–20% of the block reward should be allocated to development.

The voting results were overwhelmingly positive and ensued in the allocation of 10.9% of the mining rewards to the continuous development of the æternity protocol, development tools, and æpps.

The BRI funds are currently governed by the æternity Crypto Foundation which provides regular reports on spendings and grantees’ achievements. It even launched video interviews with some of the grant winners — you can check the first one with Tino Breddin here:

All grant reports are also available in the Forum:

The [Drone] Graffiti Project

The æternity crowd is crazy about crypto art and the potential of blockchain to unleash new forms of artistic expression. That passion led to the launch of the Drone Graffiti Project — a new creative medium enabling æternity’s community around the globe to create uncensorable, immutable urban art, leveraging the power of blockchain technology.

Drone Graffiti Artwork by Mr Kone®

How does it work? The first showcase of the project took place at the Mecca of urban art — Mexico City. Three urban artists loaded their artworks to drones which then painted them on a wall thus creating a live urban art installation. The works were afterward uploaded to the æternity blockchain where they will live forever uncensored and immutable.

However, the initial idea was for the whole æternity community to participate and to create collaborative and crowdsourced art. Thus, the project evolved into the æternity Decentralized Graffiti æpp allowing everyone with a few AE tokens to participate.

The collaborative graffiti artwork that was created during æternity Universe One.

The æpp was showcased at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz and then, was among the major attractions at æternity Universe One conference in Prague (more about it below). You can follow the evolution of the digital canvas above over the two days of the Universe One conference in Instagram.

AE Ventures and the Starfleet Accelerator

The first edition of the Starfleet program in 2018 — the incubator for early-stage blockchain startups, was a success — 9 teams received USD1.3m in funding and are now on the verge of releasing their product and services on the æternity blockchain — you can follow the progress of all Starfleeters in the Forum.