æternity is a public, open-source blockchain protocol that enables a platform for next-generation decentralized applications with high scalability. Its core components are written in the functional programming language Erlang and its smart contract language - Sophia - is also functional. æternity has a stellar team of developers including Robert Virding - co-creator of Erlang, John Hughes - co-designer of Haskell, and Ulf Norell - co-designer of the Agda programming language for formal verification. Unlike other blockchain platforms, the æternity protocol itself incorporates a number of essential technological features. State channels for off-chain scaling, oracles for real-world information, and a naming system for increased user-friendliness are all implemented on Layer 1. æternity also features SDKs in Javascript, GO, Phyton, Java, as well as a middleware and a development suite that streamline smart contract development. æternity incorporates the Bitcoin-NG consensus algorithm developed by academics from Cornell University and uses the Cuckoo Cycle mining algorithm for Sybil attack protection. AE tokens, the native cryptocurrency of the æternity platform, is used for both - an economic unit of account and as ballots in the community-driven on-chain governance votes.
Zclassic is a fork of Zcash founded by Rhett Creighton but with the 20% founders’ reward and slow start removed. Miners are simply earning their fair reward, we believe they deserve it, and the coin development can be supported by the community. ZCL also differs from ZEC by removing the slow start (source), we are not trying to deliberately engineer scarcity: The Market decides the price. We are using the same parameters which were produced in the now famous secure 'trusted setup meeting' (source) where Peter Todd participated, and he confirmed to us (source) they are safe to use. If just one of the participants kept their key secret and destroyed it, the whole system is secure. Zcash is a cryptocurrency run by the Zero Coin Inc. In order to fund their operations, a 20% mining “Founder’s Reward” is included. Every block, in order to maintain consensus, miners running the Zcash code send 20% of their newly mined rewards to an address controlled by the Zero Coin Inc. Because the Zcash source code is open source, Zclassic simply removes the 20% Founder’s Reward. This gives people the option to mine a blockchain using the same technology of Zcash, but without paying the 20% Founder’s Reward. The mission of Zclassic is to stay as similar to Zcash from a technology perspective, but to never take any pre-mine, founder’s-reward or any other kind of fee that goes to a small group of individuals with special permissions whether elected, appointed, or otherwise.