If Algorand’s meteoritical ascend is not enough, then five things will convince you to stay invested in the blockchain project.
Team Algorand
A project is as good as its team and Algorand’s success reflects that.
Silvio Micali, Founder - The celebrated Turing Award (2012) and Godel Prize-winning (1993) cryptographer has been a professor and researcher (Artificial Intelligence) at MIT’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department since 1983.
Micali co-invented zero-knowledge proofs, probabilistic encryption, verifiable random functions, among others. He has contributed to the area of pseudo-random functions, public-key cryptosystems, oblivious transfer, digital signatures, secure multi-party computation, etc.
Steve Kokinos, CEO - A serial entrepreneur, Steve first co-founded the web-hosting and application service provider firm Web Yes Inc. that worked with companies like Netscape, Sun Microsystems, and Lycos. Then he went on to co-found the leading data center automation firm BladeLogic working with Fortune 500 firms like Microsoft, GE, Walmart, Sprint, etc. As the co-founder and Executive Chairmen of Fuze, Steve transformed it into a leading firm collaborating with 1500+ enterprises.
Sean Ford, COO - Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University Graduate School of Business, Ford served in LogMeIn as Chief Marketing Officer and led the Integration Management Office for LogMeIn's acquisition of Jive Communications. He led and drove the marketing/operations of several firms, including Avid Technology, Zmags (CMO and COO), Syncsort (CMO), and Oracle (VP of Global Business Unit marketing).
Here are a few mentions of Algorand’s star-studded advisor team -
Joseph Naggar - Economic Advisor. Joseph is a Partner at GoldenTree Asset Management. He was Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and worked at Merrill Lynch and Swiss Re Financial Products. He’s also in the advisory board of the MIT Center for Finance and Policy.
Darius Sit - The trading structure and strategy advisor. He is the co-founder and Managing Partner at QCP Capital, Asia's largest crypto-asset trading company. A successful macro-trader, he has developed asset allocation models for sovereign wealth funds and predictive models for Asian currencies.
Christian Catalini - One of the principal investigators of the MIT Digital Currencies Research Study is featured in leading journals like Nature, Science, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Forbes, etc. Apart from blockchain and cryptocurrencies, Catalini’s research includes the economics of equity crowdfunding, startup growth, and scientific collaboration.
Shafi Goldwasser - A notable expert in complexity theory and cryptography, she has won Turing Award, Godel Prize, Franklin Medal, etc. Shafi is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Robert Matza - Senior Advisor. He served as President, Partner, and member of the Executive Committee of GoldenTree for 14 years and as President and COO of Neuberger Berman, Inc.
The Underlying Technology
Ethereum plans to solve its severe scalability issues by shifting from its existing Proof-of-Work protocol to Proof-of-Stake in its 2.0 version. Whereas, Algorand is developed around the advanced open-source Pure Proof-of-Stake (PPoS) algorithm offering three things -
- High Linear Scalability
- 1000 TPS mainnet speed
- High Security
The PPoS algorithm runs a cryptographically verifiable lottery over accounts to randomly select block producers and committee of block authenticators, irrespective of their stake size.
This ensures the participant identities stay hidden until blocks are added to the chain and bar any chance of foul play. As the network grows in size, the system security gets more robust. Negating the wealth gap, the stake-independent random selection of PPoS makes it an unbiased and much more impartial ecosystem than traditional PoS.
The mainnet is capable of delivering over 1000 TPS. Since each lottery is entirely independent of the other nodes in the network, PPoS can run multiple draws simultaneously. Since each lottery needs just one microsecond, this means Algorand is fast and can scale swiftly.
The Partnership Pillar
Technological superiority and a reliable team have enabled Algorand to attract partnerships from various spheres. So far, Algorand has collaborated with over 33 projects, and the list is still growing like clockwork. Here are a few essential collaborations of Algorand -
- Tether - Tether has partnered with Algorand to launch USDT, leading stablecoin by market cap, on the Algorand platform
- Circle - The firm selected Algorand as its second platform of choice for USDC, the fastest-growing number two stablecoin.
- SFB Technologies - The firm chose the Algorand platform to build the underlying blockchain infrastructure to create Marshall Islands’ Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) called ‘SOV’ or Marshallese Sovereign.
- International Blockchain Monetary Reserve (IBMR) - To promote the financial inclusion of the working-class in Southeast Asia, IBMR.io will launch the Southeast Asia Microfinance Platform (ARC.one) and create a stablecoin dubbed Asia Reserve Currency Coin (ARCC) on Algorand.
- IDEX - The top DEX has entered into a collaboration to advance its next-generation operation
- Meld - A project to tokenize the Australian gold reserve and track it over the supply chain using stablecoin.
- FIDE - World chess’s (FIDE) digital arm FIDE online has opted to record official tournament and player ranks on its digital platform in the Algorand blockchain.
- AssetBlock: A real estate startup that launched its tokenized property investment setup on Algorand
- Stonize - The firm has launched its digital security services on Algorand blockchain
- Caratan: The partnership will develop financial tools and products to encourage institutional-level Fintech adoption.
- PlanetWatch - The first "CERN Spin-off-labeled” organization will build the world's first immutable air quality LEDGER on Algorand using IoT technologies for environmental monitoring purposes.
Feature-rich Enterprise-grade Platform
Algorand is a well-thought-out platform offering almost everything enterprise businesses would require to grow their businesses and then some more. This is clear from what Algorand 2.0 promises. Here a few of industry favorites -
- No-fork Policy - Algorand blockchain offers full-finality, meaning any block once attached to the chain is absolute, no forking is possible in the future.
- Powerful ASA - The Algorand Standard Asset (ASA) tech built directly into layer-1 offers fast, secure yet customizable asset control. The issued assets being universally interoperable is another reason Algorand is popular for its powerful tokenization capability.
- No Fee - Algorand’s zero-transaction-fee policy on the base level opens meager ASA asset transaction fees and micro-payment opportunities.
- Atomic Transfer - Algorand boasts of a true atomic transfer feature supporting multi-party transfers of all ASA assets. The batched operation is superior to other complicated solutions. These transfers are super fast (less than 5 seconds) and ultra-low-cost.
- Algorand Smart Contract 1 - Built into layer-1, ASC1 smart contracts are highly secure, fast, scalable, and incredibly low-cost, allowing a more extensive range of use cases. It removes the need for private-key management and promotes cross-chain atomic transfer.
Algorand has promised to keep enhancing its capabilities.
The DeFi Offering
The partnership list indicates that Algorand is gaining popularity in the DeFi space. DeFi is the rising star in the blockchain space locking over $4 billion in funds. Algorand offers a critical balance between speed, scalability, security, and decentralization that is the foundation of DeFi’s growth.
- With a double transactional volume Year-over-Year, Stablecoin is leading the DeFi revolution. Both USDT and USDC, the top two stablecoins that control 92% of the stablecoin market, entered into partnerships with Algorand within just 4 months apart in 2020.
- Algorand has gained the trust of building the infrastructure for a CBDC project and a complete microfinance platform - both big DeFi projects.
- IDEX, one of the top decentralized exchange, has put its trust on Algorand and recognized its value
- Algorand’s feature set allows firms like Stonize, Republic, and Securitize to offer advanced blockchain-based security derivative products.
- The cryptocurrency tax and accounting software firm Verady brings its integrated accounting feature to Algorand platform. This greatly benefits all Algorand-based projects, especially the infra-building ones.
- Algorand’s stalwart tokenization and other in-built features is just what the DeFi space requires.
Conclusion
Within just two years of launch, Algorand has grown in leaps and bounds. Although not entirely unexpected, very few can actually walk the talk, especially in the crypto space. Algorand is a versatile thoroughly-planned blockchain that has gained incredible traction and seems to be in no mood to slow down anytime soon.
