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ToggleIn the increasingly competitive blockchain market, Layer-1 platforms must continuously innovate to attract developers and users. Among these, aelf (ELF) emerges as a veteran project from Asia, focusing on flexible customization, decentralized governance, and cross-chain connectivity.
So what makes aelf special? Is ELF still a potential investment in 2025? Let's explore the details with Allinstation in the following article.
What is aelf?
aelf is an open-source blockchain platform designed as a "customizable blockchain operating system" led by a group of blockchain experts from China. With its unique multi-chain architecture, aelf allows the deployment of sidechains for individual applications and integrates an on-chain governance mechanism through Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS).
Established in 2017, aelf focuses on solving persistent issues of traditional blockchain platforms such as scalability, operational costs, and inter-chain interoperability. ELF is the platform's native token, playing a role in transaction fees, staking, and network governance participation.
- 25% will be issued through Private Sale and will not have token lockup.
- 25% will be held by aelf Foundation, with a disbursement period of 3 years.
- 12% will be used as rewards for PoW+PoS blocks (estimated over 100 years).
- 16% will belong to the development team, with a 2-year Vesting period, paid twice a year at a rate of 4%.
- 10% will be reserved for Advisors and Partnerships, with a 2-year Vesting period, paid once every 6 months at a rate of 4%.
- 12% will be used for Marketing/Airdrop budget to develop the community in the first 3 years.
Token Release Schedule
All tokens have been unlocked. The remaining 120M ELF are currently locked and have no specific release schedule.
New Products and Development Roadmap
New Products
- aevatar.ai – A no-code AI agent platform that helps users create AI agents to automate tasks in the Web3 ecosystem. The platform supports integration of AI models like LLMs, GNNs, simplifying user experience.
- aelf Ventures – A $50 million investment fund by aelf, aimed at supporting projects integrating AI into blockchain. The fund focuses on driving innovation and development in the Web3 field.
Development Roadmap
Q1/2025
- Core Module Separation: Separating functions like consensus and data accessibility into independent modules, allowing easy customization and upgrades.
- Advanced Blockchain Architecture Exploration: Researching and integrating architectures like BlockDAG to improve scalability and concurrent processing.
Q2/2025
- Module Expansion: Continuing to expand modularization to execution and consensus layers, enabling developers to build custom solutions through standard interfaces.
- Custom Assembly: Implementing a Proof of Concept for dynamically loading custom modular components at runtime, specified through configuration files.
- AI Integration: Developing an intent-based Web3 access layer using AI to automate tasks like cross-chain transfers and fee management.
aelf Project Team
aelf Investors and Partners
Investors
The aelf project has been invested in by various funds including Arrington XRP Capital, Fundamental Labs, HTX Ventures.
The aelf (ELF) project conducted an ICO in December 2017, successfully raising around $25 million through private sale. There was no public sale, with 25% of total supply (250 million ELF) allocated for ICO at a price of approximately $0.099/ELF.
All tokens sold were not locked and were quickly listed on major exchanges like Binance and Huobi immediately after the ICO. This was one of the notable ICOs during the market boom in 2017.
Partners
aelf has established relationships with:
- Google Cloud
- Portkey Wallet
- Chainlink (in Oracle integration plans)
- Microsoft Azure (previously mentioned in service integration support)
- Web3 projects developing sidechains on aelf
Perspectives on aelf
aelf is one of the few Asian blockchain projects pursuing a customizable "blockchain operating system" approach. With its sidechain + DPoS + strong DAO model, the project provides flexible solutions for enterprises and dApp developers.
However, ELF remains a project with modest communication levels. This makes the community less attentive compared to larger ecosystems like Solana, Avalanche,… But in the long term, with a sustainable infrastructure, strong technical team, and diverse partner relationships, aelf remains a noteworthy choice when investing in potential Layer1 projects.
Summary
aelf is a customizable blockchain platform with a multi-chain architecture and high scalability. With its DPoS governance model, cross-chain technology, and increasingly complete ecosystem, ELF has the potential to become a comprehensive Web3 infrastructure solution.
Allinstation has answered the question of what aelf is and provided information about the project's token. Please explore and evaluate to make the most informed investment decisions. Good luck!
