Blockchain Sync Algorithms by Alexandra Roatis, Kernel developer at Aion with a research doctorate in data management:

How incremental changes can have a substantial impact on network performance.

The purpose of this article is primarily informative explaining the functionality behind how the Aion kernel synchronizes with the network. Emphasis is put on the enhancements introduced in version 0.3.2 which speed up the time in which a new node can catch up to the network by more than a factor of 6x.

Author’s secondary objective lies in the hope to illustrate how incremental changes can have a substantial impact on performance, and that it is important to not overlook optimizing existing functionality in favor of flashy equivocal features.

Blockchain Networks in 2019 by Yao Sun:

A set of practical guideposts for choosing a smart contract platform.

If the beginning of 2018 was the peak of the “blockchain” hype cycle. We currently find ourselves in a very important period of incremental progress void of speculator noise.

What should a blockchain network entail in 2019? From whom are the requirements derived from and for what reason? Within the Aion Research and Roadmap Team (ARRT), the team firmly believes that the utility of the network is defined by how effective and usable it is to an end user, and to that end, they have progressed with their research using the following criteria as our guideposts:

High Throughput Collusion Resistant Efficient Usable

Aion team believes in these principles because they lead to a highly robust and usable system, a system capable of running classes of applications with greater complexity than what is available now. These are the ideas that drive many internal discussions with ARRT, and allow them to prioritize which metrics and criteria to optimize for in a multi-faceted system. In the coming weeks they will be publishing an article regarding sampling, and the requirements it drives on committees, in addition to more details on how they envision the roadmap and modus operandi of a blockchain foundation in 2019.