Aeternity is a blockchain platform launched in 2017 that focuses on high-speed transactions, functional smart contracts, and decentralized oracles. It aims to eliminate inefficiencies in the crypto market through increased scalability, sharding, and off-chain contract execution. The Turing-complete smart contracts on Aeternity allow for transaction execution without intermediaries, and the platform uses state channels and self-arbitrating "crypto court" to resolve disputes. The Aeternity blockchain uses advanced cryptography to provide efficiency, security, and eliminate single point of failure issues.