AERE Network is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain built for the real economy. It runs on chain ID 2800, uses Hyperledger Besu's QBFT consensus engine to produce a new block every second, and is fully compatible with the Ethereum toolchain. If you can build on Ethereum, you can build on AERE, usually with nothing more than a chain-ID change.
This article introduces the core concepts: what the chain is, how it works, what the native token does, and why it exists as a standalone Layer 1 rather than an Ethereum sidechain or rollup.
The Ethereum Virtual Machine is the execution environment that Ethereum smart contracts run in. Thousands of tools, MetaMask, Remix, Hardhat, Foundry, ethers.js, viem, OpenZeppelin, are built around it. An EVM-compatible chain can run every Solidity or Vyper contract as written, and every one of those tools connects to it without modification.
AERE is fully EVM-compatible. It exposes a standard Ethereum JSON-RPC API at https://rpc.aere.network, supports every standard EIP that Ethereum mainnet supports, and uses the same address format, transaction structure, and contract ABI encoding. Developers don't have to learn anything new.
AERE uses the QBFT (Quorum Byzantine Fault Tolerant) consensus algorithm, the same engine used in enterprise Hyperledger Besu deployments. QBFT is a deterministic, committee-based consensus protocol: a rotating block proposer assembles a block, broadcasts it, and other validators vote on it. A block becomes final as soon as a super-majority of validators have signed it, there is no probabilistic finality and no waiting for "enough confirmations."
The practical result is 1-second block times with immediate transaction finality. When your transaction lands in a block, it is final. This matters for applications that need predictable settlement, payments, trading, on-chain bookkeeping, where waiting 12-15 seconds per Ethereum block, or several minutes on a rollup, is a user-experience problem.
Every transaction on AERE Network pays gas denominated in AERE, the chain's native token. Because block production is efficient and the validator set is permissioned-while-open (not a proof-of-work lottery), gas costs are negligible for ordinary transactions. Developers can build consumer applications where users never notice gas exists.
AERE has a hard cap of 2,800,000,000 tokens, 2.8 billion, specified in the project whitepaper. There is no protocol-level inflation beyond the staking-reward allocation already accounted for in that supply. The token is used for:
AereStaking contractAereGovernanceStakedAereSwapFactory)Ethereum rollups and sidechains inherit security guarantees from Ethereum mainnet, which is valuable, but they also inherit constraints: bridging latency, fee markets driven by Ethereum's own congestion, and governance subject to Ethereum's upgrade cycle. Applications that need predictable sub-second finality, full control over the fee market, and the ability to deploy custom precompiles or consensus-level features cannot get those things on a rollup.
AERE operates as an independent L1 for the same reason that enterprises choose dedicated infrastructure over shared hosting: sovereignty. The Foundation controls the validator set governance, the fee schedule, and the upgrade path. That independence is what enables features like 1-second finality and negligible gas costs in a way that a shared rollup cannot guarantee.
AERE ships with a set of production contracts already deployed on chain 2800:
The full contract registry with deployed addresses is available at /docs.html.
The fastest way to experience AERE is to add it to MetaMask and claim a small amount from the faucet. You can do both in about two minutes:
If you're a developer, the developer documentation covers the full JSON-RPC API, SDK, and contract addresses. If you want to deploy a project with financial backing, the grants program is open to applications now.
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