Given the structure of Ethereum, it is not possible to schedule calls to contracts at a point in the future. This is because smart contracts cannot subscribe to events and therefore all the actions need to be triggered by an entity external to the contract. In many applications, one may be interested in scheduling an operation (transaction, execution of a particular function) in the future.

Aion is a smart contract-based system that solves this problem. With Aion, transactions of any type (ether transactions, tokens transfers, contract's function executions, contracts deployments, and in general any bytecode instruction) can be scheduled to be executed at a particular time or block in the future.






Features




Efficient
Aion smart contract is designed for efficient scheduling, which results in a considerable improvement concerning gas consumption compared with other solutions.


Trustless
Aion system rules are enforced by smart contract logic. This avoids the need of trusting third parties. Execution of the scheduled transactions is completely determined by the user's data input.


Versatile
Aion allows scheduling of arbitrary bytecode instructions. Ether transactions, Tokens transfers, execution of any contract function or even deployment of contracts can be easily handled by Aion.


Easy Integration
Aion smart contract can be easily integrated into other smart contracts using a single scheduling function.


Fair
Aion returns all the estimated unused gas to the users when the transaction is executed. Transactions can be canceled at any time without paying any fee to the system.


User Friendly
Aion can be used by all type of users. For non-technical users, an easy to use and an intuitive graphical user interface is available.








How it Works


Aion allows users (externally owned accounts or smart contracts) to schedule transactions to be executed in the future. With reference to the figure above, assume that the user A wants to send an amount of ether to user B at a particular time or block. The process is as follows:


A sends a request for scheduling a transaction to Aion's Smart Contract (SC).
Aion's SC saves the transaction data on the Ethereum network and creates a SC for A (only once) and stores the funds in that account.
When the time or block for transaction execution arrives, Aion’s executer system sends a transaction to Aion's SC.
Aion's SC validates the transaction information and sends a trigger signal to A's SC to execute a transaction to B.
Aion's SC then estimates the amount of gas used by the transaction.
B receives the transaction. All unused gas is sent back to A’s Ethereum address.


Aion is therefore trustless, with all the steps of the execution of any transaction being completely determined by the user input data and the smart contract logic. Furthermore, Aion estimates and returns all the unused gas to the users. This process can be started by smart contracts or extrenally owned accounts (EOA). Transaction recipients can be either another smart contract or an EOA.








Documentation

Aion provides a simple graphical user interface to schedule transactions through Aion's dApp. Developers and blockchain enthusiasts can find details on how to integrate the scheduling system into their smart contracts by visiting Aion’s Github site.

Go to Aion's dApp web site
Go to Aion's Github page







Contact Us




E-Mail
For questions about Aion App contact us at aion@ethpantheon.com
For question on how to integrate Aion into your smart contracts conatact us at dev@ethpantheon.com






Contact Us:
aion@ethpantheon.com
2018