Aeternity is a new generation blockchain which aims to bring together all the latest technological innovations in a single platform. The system offers a blockchain which is less mainstream than Ethereum but which mainly targets the financial market. The Aeternity blockchain integrates “state channels”. These allow optimizing the scalability and security of the blockchain. Contract programming codes are not stored on the blockchain and smart contracts can therefore be executed more quickly.
The project uses decentralized oracles to communicate “real world” data with smart contracts. Aeternity uses a hybrid consensus that combines Proof of Work (proof of work) and Proof of Stake (proof of stake). Smart-contracts are created off-chain and stored on state channels. We can thus compare this system to Raiden, which also offers to perform off-chain transactions, for the Ethereum blockchain, or even Lightning, which offers the same process but for Bitcoin.