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An illustration of how ATON orders blocks, drawn in your browser. It is not live network data: the network is not running yet.

ATON Blockchain

Built for payments.

Fair from the first block.

ATON is a public : a shared record of payments that anyone can check and nobody controls. It is mined with an ordinary , not a special machine. Blocks can be made at the same moment, and all of them go into one agreed order. No , and nothing for sale.

How it worksThe fair launch
Not connectedLive build status

Not connected to the build tracker

The numbers show here as soon as it answers. Nothing is drawn until then.

Services

No service states to show.

Full tracker

In plain words

A network with its own coin

You send payments over the network, and you pay in its coin, also called ATON.

1

A record nobody can quietly change

Every payment goes into a record that many computers keep at once. Each copy checks the others, so nobody can rewrite what is already there.
2

A coin with a hard cap

Payments are made in ATON, and miners are paid in it for each block they make, through a long . There will never be more than one billion.
3

Kept honest by mining

Miners make new blocks with graphics cards. The behind each block is what makes the record expensive to rewrite, and that is what keeps the network honest.

How it works

Many blocks at once, one order

Miners do not have to wait for each other, and no block is thrown away because another arrived at the same moment. Each new block points back to the newest blocks its miner has seen, and one rule puts them all in order. The picture at the top of the page shows the idea.

1

Made in parallel

Miners do not wait for a block to reach everybody before making the next. Several blocks can appear at nearly the same moment, and every one of them is kept.
2

Linked to its parents

Each new block names every block its miner has seen at the tips as a parent. A block can have several parents, so the blocks form a graph instead of a single chain.
3

Coloured blue or red

A GHOSTDAG-style rule colours each block. Blue means well connected to the rest, as blocks mined honestly and published promptly are. Red means it is not, as a block held back and published late would not be.
4

Laid into one order

From the graph and its colours, the same rule puts every block in a single order. Every node with the same blocks gets the same order, and every block comes after its parents.
The block-DAG, step by step

Settled

Decided first, then built

Each of these is fixed in the specification. If the specification has not settled something, you will not read it here.

Never more than one billion

One billion ATON is a hard cap. No more will ever exist. A payment network carries many small payments, and a smaller supply would make each one a tiny fraction of a unit.

A long emission, a small tail

New ATON is paid to miners over a long time. Once that slows, a small tail keeps them paid, without relying on a fee market that may never arrive. The tail keeps tapering, so the total never passes the cap.

One memory-hard proof of work

One algorithm, and only one. Every try needs a lot of memory, so an ordinary graphics card can compete and purpose-built mining machines cannot pull ahead.

Blocks in parallel, one agreed order

Blocks can be made at the same time, and each points back to the ones before it. A GHOSTDAG-style rule colours them blue or red and puts them all in one order that every node agrees on.

Security does not follow demand

The chain is not secured by work that is useful for something else. If it were, security would drop whenever demand for that work dropped, which is exactly when an attack is cheapest.

A fair launch

No premine and no sale. Every unit comes from mining, starting at the first block, with one exception that is named in full before that block is mined.
See how the technology works

Fair launch

Nothing for sale. Ever.

There is no presale and no private round, and this site takes no orders. Every unit comes from mining, starting at the first block. The one exception, the , is named now, and its size and vesting are published before that block is mined.

  • No premine
  • No sale
  • One exception, named before the first block
Read how the launch works

In the open

Watch it being built

You can see where the work stands at any time. Progress comes straight from the build tracker, and every change to the public code is in the changelog on the day it ships.

Live

The roadmap

Every item in the plan for the blockchain, and where each one stands.

Most recent

Contents on long articles, and what to read next

atheron-site · 15 October

Blockchain waitlist

Hear when it is ready.

Leave your email and we will tell you when there is real news about ATON: the specification, the software and the launch.

.

One email now with a link to confirm your address, then only launch news, and not often. If you do not confirm it, we delete the address. We never sell or lend it, and every email gives you a way to leave.