> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://aureus-protocol.gitbook.io/aureus-protocol/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://aureus-protocol.gitbook.io/aureus-protocol/introduction-to-aureus.md).

# Introduction to Aureus

The Aurora-native protocol for liquid staking and decentralized asset management.

![Alea iacta est](https://311388672-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FiClDEHZdH8LD4ONqyy5F%2Fuploads%2FRaleIwTrILGPfqKdYSbX%2FGroup%2028%20\(1\).png?alt=media\&token=316b10b4-181a-4ff0-8cc8-de329c772c3b)

Aureus is a completely decentralized liquid staking solution that is hosted on Aurora, a massive and rapidly growing network in the NEAR ecosystem. Aurora utilizes the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) as its runtime environment. As a result, Aurora provides the user and developer experiences of mainnet Ethereum, but it has a 1 second block time and transaction fees under $0.02. The core Aureus team decided to build and deploy on Aurora because of the synergistic effects of these named attributes.