Introduction

A decentralized global blockchain network, Everscale was launched on May 7, 2020. On November 10, 2021 by the decision of its community it was given its current name. The backbone of the Everscale blockchain is the Ever Operating System.

Ever OS is distributed and decentralized, that is to say, operating over the internet, through many computer machines. While we will discuss its architecture in further detail later, let us first establish some basics.

A blockchain is a network which needs to execute blockchain programs, called smart contracts, and programs are always executed on a processor. Typically they are found in your PC or on a server, and blockchain programs operate by the same principle, in a virtual way. However, there is one fundamental difference: every program that runs on this virtual processor is also run by many other processors across the network. The result of the execution of the program is compared, and only if all of the network processors agree upon the result of the execution of the program is this execution written into the shared memory across all participating devices, in a ‘block,’ forming the blockchain.

Once this is written, the execution becomes immutable, a function guaranteed by the immutability of the whole blockchain. The most important property of this immutability is decentralization. If the network is not decentralized, it means some party controls most of the servers executing the program. If they don’t like something, or have any reason at all to change it, they can alter the record of the program execution or the execution itself. This means it cannot be immutable. In the blockchain world, combating this is called censorship resistance; meaning no single party, however powerful, can alter anything about the execution of a blockchain program after it has been completed.

These are important concepts that form the foundation upon which the blockchain is built, and without which there can be no blockchain. We will talk about this further. We will also talk about the architecture of this processor; the consensus protocols of the network, and how we guarantee that it is really decentralized; about how the programs are organized; the underlying economy behind it all, together with its importance; and about the community and its system of governance, created for the sustainability of the decentralized global computer. Oh yes, because in talking about all this, we are talking about building a decentralized global computer.