Since block 20,715,632 (September 29, 2026) the enforced minimum is seven seals of the ten validators, as many as the quorum; the seals prove those validators signed the block, not that it was decided (AIP-22 erratum, October 1, 2026). Classical ECDSA still finalizes every block. The set has had ten validators since September 11, 2026, all operated by the Foundation, and blocks arrive about every 0.62 seconds against a 0.5-second target.
Correction, added August 19, 2026. This release is a dated document and its text below is preserved as published. One statement in it is withdrawn: that from block 14,050,000 no block finalizes without a six-of-nine post-quantum quorum. The per-block quorum rule armed at that height (aere.falcon.forkBlock) is, in the shipped code, retired in favour of the anchor rules from block 13,014,000, and a re-reading of the code and of the chain, where blocks between anchors carry no Falcon seals, shows that it changed no enforcement. What chain 2800 does enforce, since 2026-08-14: every 32nd block (an anchor block) does not finalize without a certificate of at least three valid Falcon-512 validator seals (f+1 of nine) (raised at block 14,961,456, August 21, 2026: the enforced minimum became six of nine, a full 2f+1 quorum then, and at block 20,715,632, September 29, 2026, seven of ten, as many as the quorum of the ten validators) bound under its block hash; in practice eight to ten seals are carried; classical ECDSA finalizes every block. The chain did not stop at 14,050,000. Details: /quantum.html and the whitepaper, chapter 3.
Seychelles, August 15, 2026. At block 14,050,000, Aere Network, a public EVM-compatible Layer-1 (Chain ID 2800), activated hybrid post-quantum consensus on its live mainnet: from that height, no block finalizes without a quorum of Falcon-512 post-quantum validator signatures, verified against a signer registry bound on chain, with classical ECDSA retained alongside. The chain did not stop for the transition; block production continued at its normal half-second rhythm through the activation height.
To our knowledge, no other public network has demonstrated a consensus that refuses to finalize blocks without post-quantum cryptography in a form that outside parties can verify independently, from public endpoints, without trusting the operator. That verifiability is the claim this release stands on, and it is checkable today: a single-file verifier recomputes, from raw header bytes, that every anchor block carries a certificate of Falcon-512 seals bound under the block hash, and a downloadable toolkit of thirty-five checks measures the network's post-quantum precompiles against official NIST vectors, read-only, against a public RPC endpoint.
Aere's five NIST post-quantum precompiles, four signature verifiers (Falcon-512, Falcon-1024, ML-DSA-44, SLH-DSA-128s) and the SHAKE256 hash function, have been live at the application layer since block 9,189,161 (corrected 2026-10-27: this release called all five verifier precompiles). Since block 13,014,000, every 32nd block header additionally carries a certificate of validator Falcon-512 seals bound under the block hash, enforced at a minimum of three seals per anchor since August 14 (raised to six of nine, a full quorum, at block 14,961,456 on August 21, 2026). Block 14,050,000 completed the arc: the post-quantum quorum became consensus-blocking, so a block without it does not finalize at all. (Correction, dated 2026-08-19: this sentence is withdrawn. The per-block rule armed at that height is retired in the shipped code and changed no enforcement; what the chain enforces is the anchor-block certificate, whose minimum was raised to six of nine seals, a full quorum, at block 14,961,456 on 2026-08-21.) Classical ECDSA signatures are retained alongside, a deliberate hybrid: if a weakness were ever found in either signature family, the other still stands between the network and a forged block.
Run node verify-anchor.mjs from aere.network/tools to check the latest anchor certificates, or download the full toolkit at verifica-lantul.tar.gz: it installs nothing, talks only to a public endpoint, and begins with a self-test that plants twenty-one deliberate defects and must catch every one before any green result means anything. A machine-generated conformance report is published at aere.network/tools/sample-conformance-report.html.
In keeping with the project's practice of publishing capabilities and limits in the same place: all nine validators are operated by the Aere Foundation today, so the chain is not yet decentralized, and an independent-operator program is in development. No completed third-party security audit exists yet; one is on the roadmap. Aere publishes no throughput figures; deterministic sub-second finality is the performance claim it stands behind.
Aere Network is a public, EVM-compatible Layer-1 settlement network (Chain ID 2800) built to outlast today's cryptography: half-second deterministic finality, a fixed token supply of 2.8 billion AERE set at genesis, native NIST post-quantum signature verification, and, from block 14,050,000, hybrid post-quantum consensus. Documentation, research and source code: aere.network/papers.html.
Chain ID 2800. Activation height: block 14,050,000, August 15, 2026. Anchor certificates: every 32nd header since block 13,014,000, minimum three Falcon-512 seals. Precompiles live since block 9,189,161, validated against official NIST test vectors. Media: [email protected]. Full media kit at the Press and Media Center.