Introducing Roma: The First Live Implementation of the æternity Blockchain

After months of applied research and development, æternity’s Roma Release is here.

Roma is the live incarnation of the æternity project.

We are thrilled to announce that æternity’s Roma Release is now a reality! During this initial phase of the release we invite early adopters, miners and developers to join the network and continue growing the æternity ecosystem. As an open-source, decentralized project, æternity can only be initiated by community consensus.

Let’s build æternity together!

What is Roma?

The æternity team visited Rome, the “æternal city”, for Genesis Week. The capital of Italy bears the name of the ancient goddess Roma, a female deity who personified the city of Rome and the Roman state. Knowing all this, we found it easy to select a name for æternity’s first live implementation.

We are thrilled to announce that æternity’s Roma Release is now a reality!

The hash of the Genesis Block was tweeted by Yanislav Malahov earlier on the day of the release. And here is a video of Roma coming to life:

Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day

æternity is a work in process and this initial release may be prone to attacks and instability. As is the case for public blockchain releases and hardforks, there is a period of time required for mining power to accumulate, stabilize and decentralize. Despite all the simulations we have performed, a live, public blockchain can only really be battle-tested in the wild. It is possible that code imperfections will manifest themselves and cause disruptions.

We feel it is very important to communicate clearly and transparently with the community about the security of the network. Transactions can currently be made only using the command line to allow technically-versed users alone to use the network. The interface that will allow less-tech-savvy users to transact on æternity will become available in the next weeks. Although we believe that the network will be stable, at this moment caution is important.

Early adopters of the Roma Release need to be aware that bugs will most probably need to be weeded out by the community through the continued testing and monitoring of the network. Аt this initial stage, we recommend taking a cautious approach with regard to transferring tokens between accounts.

This first iteration, as well as the following Roma releases, are targeted at technical users — primarily miners and developers. The account balances in the accounts.json file and the mining rewards are actual æternity tokens.

Despite these caveats, we are confident that Roma is a stable and secure release. A recent security audit by the Swiss company cnlab found that the æternity protocol and node implementation are fit for purpose and that the Base æpp provides appropriate security. You can read the report summary here.

Thank You!

We would like to thank the entire æternity community for their patience and support since the launch of the global æternity movement.

æternity’s blockchain platform is the main technological tool for the realization of æternity’s vision of a future built on decentralized, open technology. æternity aims to enable a truly decentralized sharing economy, based on an ecosystem of trustless applications and unrestricted, fast, and secure exchange of value on a global scale.

Roma is just the beginning. Join us!

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Join the community, use any of æternity's communication channels:

Forum | Telegram | Reddit | Bitcointalk | GitHub