Aeternity: Roadmap Update, Lima release will introduce FATE, Aeventures partnered with Crowdholding, Hardfork of the æternity protocol will happen in September

Published in

Paradigm

12 min readJul 30, 2019

Biweekly update 16th July — 30th July

Gold on my wrist, I’m Æternist! During the last two weeks, this company have been working lively towards making Aeternity great. In the new Roadmap update, the team mentioned significant future milestones, that they are planning to reach soon. More specifically, they wrote that Lima would introduce the Fast æternity Transaction Engine (FATE), æternity’s customized virtual machine. FATE is a simple-to-use machine language, superior to the more traditional byte-code virtual machines currently used on other platforms. It enables easier, secure coding, faster transactions, and smaller code sizes. The first draft of the bidding and rent options of the aeternity Naming System AENS was published. The development community will focus on building a functioning and user-friendly payment æpp that will use state channels.
The æpp will lay down the groundwork required to make state channels more natural to incorporate in æpps, which is currently a high priority for dev team. Aeternity is going to rock! Besides, aeventures partnered with Crowdholding, the æventures Summer Camp took place from 15 till 19.07, and it was immensely productive, amusing and fun. The Ethereum smart contract that manages all ERC20 AE tokens will expire on September 2, 2019 (end of token migration Phase 3). That will make all Ethereum AE tokens non-transferable. It is therefore recommended that all users migrate their AE tokens before September 2. The number of subscribers declined over the period. However, the community continues to increase — we can meet a lot of ænthusiasts on Twitter, Reddit, blog and in chats. Take a minute to get acquainted with Aeternity via the sources at the end of this report. See you soon!

“Aeternity is the WhatsApp of blockchain.”

Development

Developer activity (from Aeternity Coinlib.io)

IMPORTANT: Token Migration after the AE Ethereum Smart Contract Freeze

The Ethereum smart contract that manages all ERC20 AE tokens will expire on September 2, 2019 (end of token migration Phase 3). That will make all Ethereum AE tokens non-transferable. It is therefore recommended that all users migrate their AE tokens before September 2.

If you have sent AE tokens directly to the migration contract or you have not migrated your Ethereum tokens prior to the end of Phase 3 you may still be able to access your AE tokens if:

the AE tokens are/were not managed by a smart contract (multi-signature address on Ethereum, for ex.),
you have access to the private key(s) / seed(s) / passphrase(s) / hardware wallet device used to store or send the Ethereum AE tokens

A detailed communication will be shared soon. It will explain the different options that users will have in case they do not migrate prior to September 2. In some cases, the AE tokens will become irretrievable. Migrate your tokens now to avoid complications via link.

AirDrop

According to the information included in the original announcement of æternity’s campaigns in 2017, 1% of all campaigns-created tokens will be distributed to cryptocurrency holders by a means of an airdrop. The announcement text reads:

“1% will be allocated to people who hold BTC or ETH, accessible soon after the æternity blockchain launches. This means, that everybody who holds BTC or ETH will also automatically become an AE holder.”

The specification required for the airdrop is currently being developed. More details will be shared soon.

Stratum

æternity’s Stratum implementation is published. Here is the relevant documentation:

Protocol
Server
Client

Virtual State Channels (VSC)

The development community will focus on building a functioning and user-friendly payment æpp that will use state channels. The æpp will lay down the groundwork required to make state channels easier to incorporate in æpps, which is currently a high priority.

Native Tokens (NT)

Once integrated, NT will become a first-class object in the æternity protocol. This will enable a wide range of native features currently unavailable in smart contract-managed tokens. Native Tokens will not be part of Lima but work implementing them has already started.

The first draft of the bidding and rent options of the aeternity Naming System AENS was published.
Aeternity Development Update Week 29 — watch on YouTube. In this update, Ulf Wiger discussed Virtual State Channels and the roadmap up until September.
One of the top projects from Starfleet 1 UTU_trust brought out their white paper and it is revealing the concept of tokenizing trust. Read it on protocol.utu.io.

Social encounters

Martin O’Donnell tweeted “This is amazing! Aeternity is the WhatsApp of blockchain. This project has quietly fulfilled the promise of a cryptocurrency user interface so simple your granny could use it: Aeternity Base Wallet Remote Mobile Desktop Connection”
Ulf Wiger and aeternity were in Investingcom explaining why AE’s state channels are reasonably farther along compared to other projects! Read “A Scalable Ethereum — Can Aeternity Blockchain Get Ahead by Starting From Scratch?”

“Our solution has been to make the æternity blockchain actually understand State Channels”

Create a Community Building Campaign and Grow the Æcosystem.

Anyone can now propose campaigns that raise awareness and grow the æternity community by following the simple Campaign Proposal Format.
Promoting the æternity Universe One conference could be a great idea for your first campaign.
A campaign could be anything from a writing contest or a bounty, to an event or a hackathon.
All Community Building Campaigns (CBCs) will be evaluated by an Evaluation Board.
Positive evaluation will lead to funding of the campaign.

How to Send AE Tokens to Anyone Via Email — watch on YouTube.
The Founder speaks of the main differences of Aeternity.
The æ Ventures Summer Camp took place from 15 till 19.07 and it was immensely productive, amusing and fun; with tasty food, clean mountain air, breathtaking view. They are motivated to reach new heights and make the Blockchain space shining with new successful startups!

Upcoming events:

September 20–21 — The Æternity Universe conference will take place in the period in Prague, Czech Republic.

Roadmap

æternity Development Roadmap Update

TL;DR

Lima will introduce the Fast æternity Transaction Engine (FATE), æternity’s customized virtual machine. The Fast æternity Transaction Engine uses transactions as its basic operations and operates directly on the state tree of the æternity chain. This enables native integration with first class objects such as oracles, a naming system, and state channels since those are all managed by specific types of transactions described on the protocol level. FATE is a simple-to-use machine language, superior to the more traditional byte-code virtual machines currently used on other platforms. It enables easier, safe coding, faster transactions, and smaller code sizes. It is custom-built to seamlessly integrate with the functional smart contract language Sophia.
The next scheduled hardfork of the æternity protocol will happen in September with the Lima Release.
A governance mechanism based on a Sophia smart contract will be introduced and will make it easier for the community to launch governance votes. Delegated voting and a signalling mechanism for hardfork activation will become available. A governance æpp will be launched.
IMPORTANT: All AE tokens users must migrate their AE tokens to the Mainnet before September 2 when the smart contract that manages all Ethereum AE tokens will expire.
Auctions for renting names in the æternity Naming System (AENS) will be launched with Lima.
A mobile æpp that enables state channel payments will be available during the æternity Universe One conference that will take place in Prague, Bohemia on September 20–21, 2019.
Here is the draft timeline for the Lima Release, token migration and the September hardfork.

Governance

With the goal to enable the æternity community to launch initiatives such as the BRI, the governance mechanisms will be improved with the Lima hardfork. In this respect the developer community will focus on:

Enabling “signaling” that automates the process of hardfork activation. A key header info field will be introduced and contain information that could be set by a miner via a config parameter. That information will signal whether the miner supports a proposed hardfork or not. For example, when 90% of mining power signals support for a hardfork — it is automatically activated after a week.
A Sophia smart contract will be used to enable weighted delegated voting.
Drafting a detailed specification that determines what exactly could be changed by governance on-chain.
A client-facing application for initiating and participating in voting proposals.

State Channels Payment æpp

In order to showcase the most simple functionality of æternity’s state channels, an æpp that can be used to buy various items during the æternity Universe One conference will be developed. It will allow event participants to make payments to multiple points of sale via state channels. To learn more about the first major event dedicated to the æternity ecosystem, visit the Universe One website.

Naming System Auctions

æternity’s protocol-integrated naming system (AENS) enables human-readable names for AE token accounts, including oracles and smart contracts. It is currently possible to associate an account with a test name (.test) and more than 550k names have already been registered for free.

Most valuable names be established, an auction system must be incorporated. The first step will be the drafting of a detailed specification of the auction mechanism and then developing a Sophia smart contract to execute it. It is expected that the AENS auctions will be ready in time for Lima.

Partnerships and team members

Aeventures partnered with Crowdholding. It’s an open innovation platform empowering anyone to earn rewards, and entrepreneurs to get insights from key stakeholders, employees and consumers.They will support the Starfleeters in refining their product! The first task is up — share your impressions of aeternity and win a reward in AE tokens and a Ledger Nano S! Learn more here.

Finance

Rumors

Aeternity started an AE giveaway campaign together with ForkLog in Russian telegram channel. Check out how to join via the link.

Social media metrics

The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Aeternity Facebook likes, Reddit subscribers and Twitter followers. The information is taken from coingecko.com.

Here you can find all kinds of resources to get acquainted with aeternity!

Mainnet Launch

Protocol Upgrades

Roadmap