The æternity Blockchain
Superhero runs on æternity, a public blockchain with a functional smart-contract language (Sophia), a purpose-built VM (FATE), a native naming system (AENS), and state channels for layer-2 scaling.
You do not need to know æternity deeply to use or build on Superhero. The product touches a handful of chain features, listed below, and the æternity documentation (opens in a new tab) covers everything else in depth.
What surfaces in Superhero
| æternity feature | Where you meet it in Superhero |
|---|---|
Accounts (ak_) and Ed25519 keys | Every wallet, every author byline, every trade |
| AE and aettos | Balances, bonding-curve prices, gas, tips |
AENS .chain names | Chain names and profile display names |
| Sophia contracts on FATE | Tipping, the token sale, DAOs, governance |
| AEX-9 fungible tokens | Every community token, and token balances in the wallet |
| Node and middleware HTTP APIs | Node & middleware reads, transaction status polling |
| State channels | Not used by Superhero; see State Channels |
In this section
- Why æternity: the chain properties Superhero depends on.
- Accounts & Keys: every address prefix, the key type, and the secret-key encoding the SDK expects.
- AE & Gas: aettos, the 10^18 conversion, and what transactions cost.
- AENS: preclaim and claim, pointers, expiry, and the short-name auction.
- Sophia & FATE: a Solidity-to-Sophia orientation, and what an ACI is.
- AEX Standards: AEX-9 in detail, the rest in one line each.
- Networks & Endpoints: mainnet and testnet endpoints in one table.
- Explorers: check any transaction, account or contract on æScan.
- State Channels: what they are, and that Superhero does not use them.
Related
- Architecture Overview: how the app, the backend and the chain fit together.
- Smart Contracts: the Superhero contracts that run on this chain.
- Glossary: every term used across the docs, defined once.
- What is æternity? (opens in a new tab): the official overview.