Aeternity, a blockchain development lab in Liechtenstein, has announced a public testnet, inviting interested parties to download the code on GitHub and run a smart contract test. Aeternity is seeking feedback on its plan to build a blockchain solution for verifying, storing and executing smart contracts, founder Yanislav Malahov said.

“We invite all those interested in building smart contracts to use our brand-new Turing-complete state channel technology,” Malahov said. “This is an opportunity to get hands-on involved in the next evolution of blockchain development.”

State channels integrate into the core blockchain design to improve privacy and scale capacity. By not storing contract code on-chain, smart contracts process faster and are easier to analyze.

What Users Will Need

Users can download the code, compile and run a test version of the latest software on Ubuntu, an open source operating system. Users also need Erlang, a concurrent, general-purpose, functional programming language, in addition to other libraries.

“We will eventually present a polished, highly scalable blockchain architecture with a consensus mechanism, which is also used to check the oracle,” said Zack Hess, Aeternity’s technical lead.

Hess said an oracle, in the context of a blockchain, is a mechanism to reveal facts about the physical world, and can be a function of the blockchain.

“For example, a blockchain can use its oracle to find out the results of a football game or who won an election,” he said. “Aeternity’s oracle will not only be decentralized, but very efficient and cost-effective because it avoids layering one consensus mechanism on top of another.”

Also read: Bitcoin’s future: proof-of-stake vs. proof-of-work

Hybrid Consensus Mechanism

The testnet will provide a proof-of-work model of consensus. The “mainnet” platform will be based on a hybrid, proof-of-stake and proof-of-work consensus mechanism. The objective of the test phase is to demonstrate the function of state channels, according to Hess.

Proof-of-stake and proof-of-work are algorithms that help govern the state and proper order of blockchains.

The mainnet version is set to launch in early 2018.

Aeon tokens, which users will purchase with digital or fiat currency, will fuel the blockchain platform.

Aeternity will have an initial token offering in the first quarter of 2017.

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