Aeternity is a new blockchain technology, designed to deliver unmatched efficiency, transparent governance and global scalability. Smart contracts exist only inside off chain state channels. Only in case of a disagreement the smart contract code gets enforced by the æternity blockchain. An oracle machine connects public real world data with smart contracts. Oracles are categorically more powerful than Turing-complete computational models. Consensus is achieved via a novel hybrid Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm. æternity implements a form of futarchy, where miners vote and value-holders bet to make decisions together.