Aeon coin beginners guide – AEON features, specifications & wallet setup

CryptoNote is an open source application layer protocol which powers Monero, Aeon and several decentralized, privacy-based cryptocurrencies. Back in 2017 all CryptoNote based cryptocurrencies faced a major problem. The Infinite inflation bug which allows for the creation of unlimited number of coins (double-spends) in a way that it is impossible to detect by an observer. Monero (XMR) was the first coin to diagnose and patch this bug. Followed by Monero; Aeon and few other early CryptoNote coins reacted to it and fixed this issue immediately.

The above news is a year old and Aeon coin is 4 years old. Currently there are so many cryptocurrencies based on CryptoNote protocol with each focused on different ideas. Before Electroneum (ETN), the first coin that aimed to be lighter and that focused on mobile friendly ecosystem is Aeon. Aeon coin was all started as an experimental project but since then the  community is going strong and the project has evolved greatly. So what makes Aeon special compared to Monero and other CryptoNote currencies and is this is coin worth considering now?

Here let’s see what is Aeon coin, how it is different than Monero and how it all began. Then we’ll see all of its features and technical specifications. Along with that, this beginners guide also explains how to setup Aeon coin wallet and get started with the project.

What is Aeon coin (AEON)?

Including Monero there are so many privacy cryptocurrencies that are more popular than Aeon such as Dash, ZCash, PIVX etc. The technology behind each of these privacy coin varies but among the list Monero remains the most favorite privacy coin for many. Monero project is focused towards privacy and anonymity but from usability point of view it stands behind and that is what Aeon coin is focused on. Just like how Litecoin is the lighter version of Bitcoin, Aeon coin aims to be the lighter version of Monero. Aeon is the little brother of Monero and this anonymous cryptocurrency is designed to be faster, lighter, highly-scalable and more mobile-friendlier than Monero.

Aeon (Anonymous Electronic On-line Coin) is an open-source, decentralized cryptocurrency  that is aimed towards community. Everybody can use it without any restriction and anybody is allowed to contribute to the project. Aeon was launched on June 2014 by an anonymous user, but for some reason the original developer abandoned the project. Later the community took over and handed it over to “smooth” who is also a core developer of Monero. Now the developer “smooth” leads the project and there is no official roadmap for Aeon. Also there was no premine or insta-mine and it is a pure community based cryptocurrency. As we said anybody can be part of the project.

Aeon features

Aeon is a private, secure and untraceable crypto currency. You are the bank, you control your funds and nobody can track any of your transactions. It has similar emission curve and same max supply as Monero (~ 18.4 Million). The block time is 240 seconds and it uses egalitarian Proof of Work algorithm called CryptoNight-Lite.

Aeon is a fork of Monero which is a fork of Bytecoin. All three are anonymous egalitarian digital currencies that uses same CryptoNote technology and hence all these coins possess the following features:

• Ring signatures: Makes payment untraceable
• One-time keys: Unlinkable transactions
• Double-spending proof
• Blockchain analysis resistance
• True anonymity and data protection
• Egalitarian PoW: CPU / GPU Mining

For more detailed information on all these features check this link: https://cryptonote.org/inside.

Now Aeon is not only about privacy, security and untraceability. It is also about speed, simplicity and usability. Following are the key difference between Aeon and Monero.

Aeon vs Monero

1. Aeon uses different PoW and its network has a block time of 4 minutes. Compared to Monero and other CryptoNote coins; Aeon’s light weight PoW allows faster verification of the blockchain. This along with 4 minutes block time the sync times becomes much faster; even on low end computers.

2. Less resource usage compared to Monero. Aeon is one of the few CryptoNote coins that has blockchain pruning for scalability. Other coin that has this feature is Masari (MSR). Blockchain pruning aka light full nodes is an option that reduces blockchain file size. With this option anybody can run a full node with worrying about storage limitations.

3. Monero and basically all coins that uses CryptoNote protocol are anonymous. Aeon is also anonymous but aside from being fully anonymous Aeon also features traceable transactions. This is optional and it can be used for faster and light weight payments.

4. Aeon is a mobile friendly currency and it is designed to run efficiently across all devices such as smart phones, laptops and desktops.

But can mining be done via mobile devices? Apart from Aeon, there is Electroneum and Stellite (XTL) which is also focused on mobile mining. Also there are some mobile miners which you can find in both Google Play and App Store. But mining using mobile is not as feasible as you think and we’ll explain more about this in Aeon coin mining guide. Now since we’ve covered most of the coin features lets see the technical specifications of Aeon.

Aeon technical specifications:

• Coin Name: Aeon
• Ticker: AEON
• Forked from: Monero
• Coin Type: Proof of Work
• PoW Algorithm: CryptoNight-Lite
• Max coin supply: ~ 18.4 Million
• Block Time: 240 Seconds (4 minutes)
• Block Reward: Smoothly varying. [Formula: (M−A) / (2¹⁸) / (10¹²) where M = 2⁶⁴ −1 and A = supply mined to date].
• Difficulty re-target: Every block
• Bitcoin Talk Announcement: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=641696.0
• Website: https://www.aeon.cash/
• Block Explorer: https://aeonblocks.com/
• GitHub: https://github.com/aeonix
• Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/aeon
• Date of Launch: 06.06.2014

Aeon wallet

Now whether you wish to mine Aeon or Buy Aeon coins you need a wallet to hold funds. You can download Aeon GUI and CLI wallets from the following link.

Aeon GUI: https://github.com/aeonix/aeon-gui/releases

Aeon CLI: https://github.com/aeonix/aeon/releases

Since Aeon is based on Monero the wallet is also forked from Monero. The usage of both AEON GUI and CLI wallets are same as Monero and since many of us know how to operate this wallet we’ll not go through the setup process again.

If you are looking for a paper wallet then you can quickly generate one from this link (https://moneroaddress.org/). Choose Aeon and click on generate wallet to create a new wallet address. But remember to copy all the information shown in the page especially the wallet mnemonic seed. This is what you need to restore your wallet later and to know how it’s done check this guide on restoring Monero wallet.

Aside from paper wallet there is online web wallet called Aeon Pocket. But the team who developed this wallet recently announced that they will shutdown the service soon. So do not use this and if you got funds in this wallet then move it to core wallet.

Aeon blockchain file size is more than 5 GB and using pruning mode you can reduce the file size. Aeon pruning is similar to Bitcoin pruning and more information on this can be found here. But looks like the latest wallet client doesn’t seem to support --pruning option. Anyways aside from pruning to save disk space and to synchronize your wallet faster you can connect your wallet to a remote public node. Following are the node list that you can add to your wallet and you can find more node list here.

Aeon wallet remote nodes: Node lists

If you do not know how to connect your wallet to remote network then follow this guide. It explains the use of remote nodes in Monero wallet which also applies to Aeon.

Okay, now as you have your wallet ready you may wish to buy or mine Aeon. Before you go here is what you need to know.

Aeon: market, price and final thoughts

During its early stage Aeon was priced too low and just like every other cryptocurrency the price of Aeon also spiked during the 2017 bull run. It hit as high as $9 and since then the price has dropped significantly. At the time of writing this article Aeon is priced at $0.66 (10,080 Satoshi) and its current market cap is 10.5 Million USD. The volume is steady and following are the list of exchanges where you can buy sell Aeon coin.

• Bittrex
• HitBTC
• TradeOgre
• Bitliber
• LetsDoCoinz
• ChangeNOW

But is this the right time to buy Aeon?

Both Monero and Aeon are based on same privacy protocol and the lead developer of Aeon is also a developer for Monero. This similarity makes community think Aeon as a test bed for Monero. Aside from this similarity Aeon has its own development goals and it has got an independent community but not anywhere close to Monero.

In overall, Aeon seeks to be the lighter and faster version of Monero. It has features such as light weight algorithm, optional anonymity and smaller blockchain. But is this alone enough for Aeon to reach wider adoption? Before buying or mining do keep in mind that this guide is not any sort of financial advise so kindly do your own research.

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