Aether Protocol — Art. Utility. Rewards.
Aether is a collection of 1,000 NFTs on Ethereum, built as a DN404 hybrid: the ERC-20 token $AETH and the Aether NFTs are two views of the same contract. Every 1,000 $AETH equals one NFT. Holders earn on-chain rewards — emissions accrue to each NFT every block, and trading fees flow to a pool that NFT holders can claim.
DN404 combines an ERC-20 and an ERC-721 in one contract. The token side ($AETH) and the NFT side stay synchronized on every transfer — you do not manually "convert" between them. When a wallet's balance reaches 1,000 $AETH, one Aether NFT is minted to that address. When the balance drops below a 1,000-token multiple, the corresponding NFT is returned to the unminted pool.
Wallet-to-wallet transfers of any amount update both sides automatically. The ratio is fixed at 1,000:1. The collection cannot exceed 1,000 NFTs; that cap is enforced in the transfer hook after every NFT move.
Initial total supply is 1,000,000 $AETH — 1,000 NFTs × 1,000 tokens each. Additional $AETH can only enter circulation through the emission claim path; there is no admin mint function.
Emissions are hard-capped at 5,000,000 $AETH total ever minted through the reward system. At launch, the full initial supply is paired with ETH in a Uniswap V2 liquidity pool. Trading begins once that pool exists; there is no separate "enable trading" switch.
Each Aether NFT accrues $AETH every block it is held. The rate is not fixed — it scales with how much of total supply remains in the liquidity pool. As tokens leave the pool and distribute to holders, the pool's share of supply shrinks and the per-block rate falls automatically.
In plain terms: more supply in the pool means a higher rate; less in the pool means a lower rate. The live rate per block per NFT is:
effectiveRate = MAX_RATE × poolShare
where poolShare = poolBalance / totalSupply. The ceiling constant is MAX_RATE = 0.001e18 $AETH per block per NFT (~7.2 $AETH per NFT per day at the ceiling, before decay). Rewards accumulate until the holder calls claim(), which mints $AETH to their wallet.
Buys and sells on the Uniswap V2 pair are taxed at 0.5% each (50 basis points). Wallet-to-wallet transfers are not taxed. The fee is hard-capped in the contract at 1% — it cannot be set higher.
Each fee is split: 50% is sent to a burn address and 50% goes to the RewardDistributor fee-pool for NFT holders. The owner can adjust the fee rate and burn/reward split within those hard caps.
The RewardDistributor tracks entitlements with a per-tokenId accumulator — when fees arrive, every NFT's share increases equally. Holders claim per NFT. Amounts left unclaimed for roughly 30 days expire and are burned rather than paid out.
At launch, a single wallet may hold at most 2% of total supply (20,000 $AETH). The limit increases by 1 percentage point every block and reaches 100% after 98 blocks (~20 minutes at mainnet block times).
The ramp is a fixed function of block number — it cannot be paused, extended, or re-tightened after launch. Its purpose is to reduce the impact of a single-wallet snipe in the first blocks of trading. It does not prevent splitting across multiple wallets.
The collection is permanently limited to 1,000 Aether NFTs. The contract checks total NFT supply in _afterNFTTransfers after every mint, burn, or transfer. Any operation that would create NFT #1,001 reverts.
This cap cannot be raised. There is no governance path to increase it.
Contract source is public on GitHub and verified on Etherscan. There is no admin mint function — the only path that creates new $AETH is the emission claim, and the amount is formula-bound.
The owner can set fee parameters within hard caps (maximum 1% fee, configurable burn/reward split) and assign the Uniswap V2 pair address. Emission math and the NFT cap are not owner-adjustable.
AetherToken — the DN404 core: $AETH balances, NFT coupling, trading fees, emissions, and claims.
NFT Mirror (ERC-721) — the ERC-721 interface to the same NFT state; used by marketplaces and wallets that expect standard NFT contracts.
RewardDistributor — receives the fee-pool portion of trading fees, tracks per-NFT entitlements, and pays claims (with expiry for stale balances).
Smart-contract risk applies to any on-chain protocol. The Aether contracts have not been audited by a third-party firm. Review the verified source and assess whether the code matches your expectations before interacting.
$AETH is a traded token — price can move sharply in either direction. Emissions mint real $AETH (not a separate reward token), so claimed rewards increase circulating supply. Fee-pool balances expire if not claimed within the window; unclaimed amounts are burned.
DN404 is a newer token standard. Wallet and marketplace support may differ from conventional ERC-721 collections. Test with small amounts first if you are unsure how your tools handle the hybrid model.