Summary, History and Status of Algorand (ALGO)

Summary, History and Status of Algorand (ALGO)

Summary, History and Status of Algorand (ALGO)

…and how to make money on it in 2024?

Layer 1 Chains

·

29 min

Summary, History and Status of Algorand (ALGO)

…and how to make money on it in 2024?

Layer 1 Chains

·

29 min

Summary, History and Status of Algorand (ALGO)

…and how to make money on it in 2024?

Layer 1 Chains

·

29 min

Summary, History and Status of Algorand (ALGO)

…and how to make money on it in 2024?

Layer 1 Chains

·

29 min

TL;DR: With a new update or project being released almost every day, it’s clear the crypto ecosystem is constantly evolving. Algorand has gone through a lot of ups and downs to reach the level it’s at today — but it’s just the beginning. Knowing what brought it here and why it was created will lead you to make better decisions when investing or simply using Algorand.

In this article, we’re gonna dive into the Algorand ecosystem, answer all the $ALGO related questions and even more. Prepare yourself for a history lesson and a journey to the future of Algorand!

What is Algorand (ALGO)?

Algorand is a Layer 1 blockchain created in 2017 by professor Silvio Micali. It is a smart contract platform that focuses on being highly scalable and secure.

Scalability is defined as the amount of transactions that Algorand can process per second, or throughput. The network can process 6000 transactions per second.

The consensus mechanism that Algorand uses is called Pure Proof of Stake.


Pure Proof of Stake means that Algorand gets its security from validators that stake $ALGO to secure the chain. This is different from Proof of Work blockchains, where miners replace the role of validators. One of the benefits of Proof of Stake mechanisms is that the validator hardware requirements are reduced.

For example, validators can run their node on a Raspberry Pi as opposed to a mining rig that is highly energy intensive. Being able to secure the network using retail hardware is also helping decentralize the network. All that the user needs from there is to own the network’s token which he pledges as stake.

To avoid the “rich get richer” situation observed in the PoS networks, the PPoS model allows anyone to participate in the validation process, no matter how many ALGO tokens they own.

Algorand’s Pure Proof of Stake mechanism is similar to the typical Proof of Stake, but goes a step further to ensure the integrity of the network.

Through PPoS, users are randomly selected to validate blocks. This is one difference from Proof of Stake, where validators get selected strictly based on the amount of tokens they stake.

On Algorand, there is no slashing penalty. The network allows malicious actors to exist along with honest users provided that honest users represent more than two-thirds of the total tokens staked.

Algorand has a booming ecosystem that grows daily, all powered by its native token. The native token of Algorand, $ALGO, is used actively throughout the network, from validators to users. The concept of blockchains is not new, and Algorand is one of many such networks.

The idea started in 2008 with the release of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin Whitepaper. This kicked off the subsequent creation of many different types of networks under the same “blockchain” terminology. Despite being similar in concept blockchains have all different architectures and use cases. What all have in common — including Algorand — is that they have to be secure.

Security is the ability of a blockchain to prevent attacks and penalize malicious actors. This is usually done through their consensus algorithm and the mechanism they use to reach finality.

Finality is achieved when a block has been created and is now immutable, meaning that nobody can change the date inside.


Over time many different mechanism have been designed, ranging from Proof of Work, Proof of Stake to novel ones called Proof of Spacetime. Each one hopes to achieve the best way of securing the network they are built for.

As noted before, Algorand makes use of type of consensus mechanism we call “Pure Proof of Stake” — or PPoS for short. Algorand’s has been created with the goal of solving the blockchain trilemma — achieving scalability, security, decentralization. According to the blockchain trilemma, a network can succeed in two of the three major objectives.

Algorand achieves decentralization by selecting validators randomly from all token holders. As mentioned previously, there is no minimum stake required to become a validator. The fact that validators are secretly chosen ensures security, which is another important aspect of the trilemma.


On Algorand, the selection mechanism is similar to a lottery, where every ALGO token is the equivalent of a lottery ticket. The more “tickets” you have, the higher chances you get to validate a block. Validators are selected secretly to prevent bad actors from interfering with the block validation process.

Silvio Micali said about the random selection process that even an entire nation can’t improve its chances to guess the next validator. By the time the validator is revealed, the block has already been produced and there’s nothing they can do.

Scalability is defined as the number of transactions a network can process while using complex applications. Since 2020, Algorand has been operating on a two-tier architecture:

The Layer 1 (on-chain) supports is for smart contracts who execute simple operations such as asset creation (Algorand Standard Assets), operating simple smart contracts (ASC1), and atomic swaps.

The Layer 2 (off-chain) is used for contracts that are require specialized tools. This applies to databases that may be too big to keep on the chain, or too sensitive to the public. It also applies to smart contracts that are too computationally demanding.

Using this architecture, Layer 2 smart contracts are executed in parallel with the network, without affecting the blockchain’s throughput. Since the computation is done off-chain, Layer 2 smart contracts are validated by a smaller committee which achieves a level of decentralization similar to Layer 1. 


Algorand is powered by the ALGO token, a central part of the Algorand ecosystem. ALGO is an inflationary token due to the way its tokenomics have been planned. Instead of paying validators with the entire block reward, the ALGO tokens are distributed across all token holders.

Reward distribution occurs every 10 minutes, and on average ALGO holders receive 5-6% APY.  The rewards distribution model is to encourage more users to join the validation process. ALGO token holders are automatically eligible to receive the rewards as long as their token balance is above 1 ALGO.

The tokenomics of Algorand also specifies a maximum amount of tokens that will ever be created. The maximum amount that will ever be minted by the protocol is 10 billion ALGO, distributed as follows:

- 3 billion ALGO have been released into circulation after the genesis block.

- 2.5 billion ALGO will be distributed over time to the relay nodes.

- 2.5 billion ALGO are reserved for the Algorand Foundation and Algorand Inc.

- 1.75 billion ALGO is allocated for rewards and participation nodes.

- 0.25 billion ALGO will be distributed though grants and bootstrapping initiatives.

For more details about how you can earn more Algorand by running a validator node at home check out our Algorand Mining & Staking guide. It includes the exact steps and best methods of earning more crypto like $ALGO in 2024 and beyond.

When was Algorand (ALGO) created?

Algorand was the culmination of Silvio Micali’s study in cryptography. Work began on the Algorand chain in 2017, but before that, a couple of important events happened.

Most events revolve around the Algorand CEO and Founder, Silvio Micali. His first encounter with blockchain technology was in 2015, when he came across Bitcoin. During research, he discovered inherit shortcomings for Bitcoin, and decided to design an improved version of the ledger. This event lead to the creation a unique model for a permissioned blockchain.

At the time, Proof of Stake was still finding its way into the crypto industry. Early proponents of the model such as Polkadot and Ethereum were outliers, and people had little faith in its security model. Most cryptocurrencies were still reliant on Proof of Work, which was battle-tested, but didn’t bring any innovation for the sector. 

Silvio’s work was so impressive that one of his colleagues, Nickolai Zeldovich (Head of Distributed Systems), critiqued the model saying it was “too good to be true.” The two decided to run an experiment that would prove the efficiency of the blockchain. They rented thousands of servers from Amazon, and ran simulations with thousands of users until they’ve reached 500,000 users. The test was compelling enough to determine Silvio to start his own company and bring his vision of a borderless economy to fruition.

The team started out with 11 people, 8 of which were from MIT. Silvio’s home was the the headquarters of Algorand for the initial three months. During this time, the team managed to pull off a proof of concept that they could pitch to the investors.


The intense work paid off, and in February 2018, Algorand had secured $4M in seed funding from Pillar and Union Square Ventures. Micali leveraged his reputation to raise another $62M from various investors in October the same year. By then, it was clear that Algorand would have to position itself as a solid company in order to achieve its mission.

In the same month, Algorand approved Steve Kokinos as its CEO and Sean Ford as its COO. Both entrepreneurs had extensive experience in managing multi-billion public companies and would give Algorand the tenure of an experienced enterprise.

On May 1st, 2018, Algorand shared its Byzantine agreement protocol to the public.


The strength of the chain is its block finality speed. Block finality refers to the time it takes for the block to be validated by the blockchain and become immutable. Usually, a number of blocks is required to be added before a transaction can safely be called immutable. This is because with each block added, it gets exponentially more difficult for an attacker to revert the state of the network.

In a typical blockchain, the proposed block needs to be propagated to all validators, and then agreed if it should be added. The process can take from a few seconds to several minutes. For example, the confirmation time for a Bitcoin block takes around 10 minutes, while a transaction on Solana can take milliseconds to be final.

Without going into much detail, transaction finality is tied both to the speed of the network as well as the security. In Algorand’s design, agreement on a proposed block is agreed upon while the block propagates to the validators. By the time all users have seen the block all voting is complete. 


What about the security side?

First, it is important to note that Algorand’s agreement protocol can’t be forked, which effectively prevents this attack vector from happening. The team has focused its efforts on securing Algorand against network level attacks, such as network partitions. In these attacks, an adversary targets the communication links between users, making it hard or impossible for users to interact.

For example, an attacker can spend X amount of dollars to disrupt the network for 10 seconds. After 10 seconds the network is functioning again, and the users attempt to recover the blockchain’s operation, but they take one hour to regroup before they can produce the first new block post-partition. Under such circumstance, the attacker can stall the network indefinitely.

Algorand’s solution to this attack vector is to make attacks more expensive with each hour of stalling. Even if the attacker managed to execute a partition attack, Algorand incorporated a fast recovery mechanism. Not only these scenarios have been theorized, but the network prototype was ready to go public.

After studying the shortcomings of Bitcoin, Silvio Micali came up with a new type of consensus called Pure Proof of Stake. In terms of security, PPoS doesn’t try to penalize bad actors using slashing. Rather, it makes cheating by a minority impossible.

Validators are chosen in a secret lottery, and by the time an attacker learns who the validators are, the blocks have already been propagated to the network.

On July 20, 2018, Algorand has launched its testnet, along with an invite program for community members to preview the technology. The scope of the testnet was to collect data on the protocol under more dynamic conditions at a larger scale than the team can sustain internally. However, the team remained quite secretive about the source code, and promised to make it public after the mainnet.


Early on, Silvio Micali went to meetups around the world to promote Algorand. Given his tenure in the academic world, hundreds of attendees from London, Glasgow, Cambridge and Prague were first learning about the protocol. The amount of brain power involved would foster a sophisticated community capable of contributing to Algorand’s protocol.

Gradually, Algorand became a more diverse community that was eventually helped the protocol launch. Several months after the testnet launch, Algorand has garnered participation from over 500 nodes around the world. The network consistently managed to process 1000+ TPS with a 5 second finality.


At the same time, Algorand’s protocol has been rigorously peer-reviewed by both internal and external parties. The code has been verified two of the leading third-party blockchain security auditors, Trail of Bits and NCC. They also completed a source code review with InCodeWeTrust, who found that Algorand’s code quality and security is very high.

Who created Algorand (ALGO)?

Silvio Micali is most well known for founding Algorand in 2017. Before that, he was a professor at the MIT where he taught about cryptography, zero knowledge and protocol design. Micali’s early work was in public key encryption, pseudorandom functions and secure multiparty computation.

He is also one of the co-inventors of zero-knowledge proofs, a method by which one party can prove a given statement is true without conveying additional information. At the time, zero-knowledge proofs were a striking new philosophical idea that would later lay the ground for the next generation of blockchains.

Born in Palermo, Italy, Silvio Micali graduated the Sapienza Universita di Roma with a bachelor degree in mathematics in 1978.

In 1982, he earned his PhD in computer science at the University of California, Berkley. One year later, he finished his postdoctorate at the University of Toronto.


Over the course of Micali’s career, he received distinguished rewards for his research in cryptography. Most notable honors are the Gödel Prize (1993), the RSA Award for Excellence in Mathematics (2004).

In 2007, he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the International Association for Cryptologic Research. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The biggest distinction in Micali’s career was the Turing Award, which he received in 2012 along with Shafi Goldwasser for their work in the field of cryptography. As a reference point, the Turing Award is the equivalent to winning the Nobel prize in the field of computer science.


The Turing Award is given annually and is named for British mathematician Alan M. Turing, who invented the idea of the computer and who helped the Allies crack the Nazi Enigma cipher during World War II. 

The story has it that Silvio Micali and his colleague Shafi Goldwasser wanted to figure out a way to securely play poker on the phone. While toying around with the idea, they had designed what Micali calls “the first secure encryption scheme the world has ever seen.”

From there, Micali and Goldwasser proved that their scheme could solve much more complex challenges, such as secure communication protocols and internet transactions. Based on the idea, they published a paper in 1992, titled “Probabilistic Encryption,” which laid the framework for modern cryptography. 


The paper introduced formal security definitions, which remain the standard for security to this day, and pioneered randomized methods of encryption. The gist of the concept is that randomized encryption is more secure than deterministic encryption. To go a bit further, randomized encryption is an algorithm that encrypts the same message several times until it yields different cyphertexts.

The duo also introduced the simulation paradigm, which tests the security of a system based on all the information an enemy could have simulated. To this day, the simulation paradigm is used as a standard in cryptography.

In 2001, Silvio Micali founded Peppercoin, a cryptographic system for processing micropayments. Although the project secured $15 million in venture capital, its services have seen modest adoption. In 2007, Peppercoin was acquired for an undisclosed amount.

Today, Silvio is still a professor at MIT, but his focus is to overview the development and research at Algorand. With Algorand, Micali wanted to solve the blockchain trilemma, which addresses the challenges in creating a blockchain that is scalable, decentralized and secure.


He said, “No one wants a blockchain that is not scalable. As a scientist, impossibilities always attract me. I decided to throw my hat out, and see if I could prove this impossibility wrong. This was a case where we thought it was an impossible problem to solve, but it wasn’t. We needed to have a different approach to the consensus to overcome the problems.”

The Algorand team is led by internationally recognized researchers, cryptographers and economists along with business leaders from global tech companies.

Sean Ford servers as the CEO of Algorand since 2018. In his early years, Sean earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the Williams College and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University.


At the start of his career, Sean spent seven years as senior strategy consultant with Monitor Group, and later co-founded Upromise Inc. where he was VP of product management and product marketing. Sean has also held several executive leaderships including CMO and COO at Zmags, CMO of Syncsort, and as vice-president of Global Business Unit (GBU) marketing at Oracle reporting to the CMO.

Paul Riegle serves as the Chief Product Officer at Algorand since 2021. Between 2018 and 2021, he served as the VP of Product at Algorand. Paul Riegle earned his bachelor degree at the James Madison University in 2001. He then completed his MBA Magna Cum Laude at the University of Notre Dame.


Prior to Algorand, Paul worked as a global product manager at IBM and then at Carbon Black, a cybersecurity company. This is where he spent most of his professional career before joining Algorand.

The Algorand team has a total of 10 reputable members, along with 4 scientific advisors and 4 cryptocurrency advisors. The company has ties to influent VCs. The most well-known backer on their list is Naval Ravikant, who is a seed investor in Twitter, Uber, Wish, Kraken and several other successful companies.


How is the Algorand (ALGO) token used?

The Algorand token is the native token for the Algorand network. Most assets in the Algorand ecosystem are denominated in ALGO, which makes it the default unit of account.

ALGO is the fuel that powers transactions and block creation on the Algorand chain. We sometimes refer to it as “gas”. Its primary use case is securing the network and keeping actors aligned to the same principles.

Making a transaction on the ALGO network requires a small fee in ALGO, usually around 0.001 ALGO per transaction. Because Algorand has a quick time to finality and processes more transactions per second the gas fees quickly add up. This small fee is paid by users and goes to the Algorand Foundation. 


According to the team, this is a temporary measure, and the funds will be channeled back into the ecosystem once a certain threshold is reached. In full transparency, all the fee wallets are published on the Algorand website where they can be viewed by anyone.

At the genesis of Algorand, 10 billion ALGO tokens were minted. As of September 2022, circulating supply is around 7 billion ALGO, distributed among various components of the ecosystem.

The remaining amount is held by the Algorand Foundation in 3 separate ecosystem parts: The Community & Governance Rewards, Ecosystem Support and Foundation Endowment.


In order to act as transparently as possible, the distribution of the resources is documented and issued via semiannual transparency reports. The main goal of the token allocation is decentralization and inflation control.

You may wonder, how is it possible for Algorand to decentralize if the foundation holds all the tokens from fees?

Their plan is to strengthen the ecosystem first, and after 65% of the token supply has been distributed, Algorand will then be considered fully decentralized.

This points to the 2nd utility of the ALGO token: governance.

In the current system 1 ALGO = 1 vote. We will dive deeper into the governance process in the next part of the article.

Algorand is currently listed on multiple exchanges. The major ones are Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.

If you want to skip ahead and learn how to earn more Algorand by running a validator node at home check out our Algorand Mining & Staking guide. It includes the exact steps and best methods of earning more crypto like $ALGO in 2022 and beyond.

Who is developing Algorand (ALGO) now?

Development on Algorand started in 2017 by a team who later spun out into Algorand Foundation. After validating their idea, Silvio Micali and his team at MIT created Algorand Foundation.

Algorand Foundation is a company founded in 2019 that handles the development of the Algorand (ALGO) blockchain and protocol.

It is a non-profit that operates independently from Algorand Inc. Besides handling the development of the core protocol, it is also tasked with organizing the community, protocol governance. The Foundation’s stake is 500 million ALGO tokens to which are added the participation and governance rewards. The stake is used for participation in the consensus, which ensures the protocol’s integrity as the network matures.


Another important role of Algorand Foundation is to run relay nodes and to overview the whitelisting process for companies that want to run their own Algorand nodes. In 2021, the Foundation launched a program where it selected 20 companies and individuals to run relay nodes in different configurations. In 2022, another 8 companies were selected, running additional relay nodes.

However, anybody with an Algorand account can run a non-relay node and participate in the Algorand consensus protocol as an independent validator. As of 2022, there are 120 nodes on the Algorand network.

The initial codebase has been written entirely by Silvio Micali and his team. However, Algorand Foundation is now offering resources to developers who want to build on top of the network.


In the first nine months of its existence, the Foundation has allocated 67.5 million ALGO for the ecosystem development. The key areas of focus have been: Core Protocol Research and Development (30M ALGO), Ecosystem Development Support (30M ALGO) and Community Engagement (7.2M ALGO).

Since launching in 2020, more than 40 grants have been awarded, and new proposals keep coming in. Recently, Algorand Foundation has partnered with Reach, a blockchain development platform, to make building dapps on the network easier.

A big chunk of the ALGO tokens held by the Algorand Wallet is being channeled towards development grants, bounties and startup accelerators. One such initiative is called Algorand Accelerate, and its goal is to recruit promising startups building on Algorand.


The Foundation has partnered with LongHash Ventures and Borderless Capital to help startups formulate, market and execute their ideas. The Foundation is also partnered with Gitcoin Grants, where they post bounties.

Open sources contributors are also important. Algorand’s GitHub lists dozens of developers who actively participate to improve the protocol.

In 2020, Algorand has taken steps to decentralize the network by giving the token holders the power to decide the fate of the network.

On-chain governance has been introduced. In such system, governors lock their tokens for a given amount of time, initially proposed to be three months. On the good side, there is no minimum or maximum commitment of ALGO to participate in the governance process. What’s more, there is no minimum/maximum number of governors and KYC isn’t mandatory.

ALGO holders who choose to partake need to sign up on the Governance portal on Algorand Foundation and declare their tokens. Voting periods are open for two weeks to give governors time to review the proposals


For ALGO holders who commit their tokens for one year there is a special title called xGov. This type of governor is relatively new and the Foundation is yet to release more details about their prerogatives. Generally, xGovs are bound to the same rules as the regular governors. 

The principle of locking up tokens is to ensure participants have substantial “skin in the game.”For their activity, governors will get remunerated from the governance rewards pool.


As of 2021, the governance reward rate has been set a conservatively 8%. Interestingly, the Algorand Foundation will not vote or earn rewards. Moreover, governors can choose if they wish to follow the Foundation’s advice.

What are the latest updates on Algorand (ALGO)?

Algorand in 2019

June 19, 2019 was the mainnet launch of the Algorand protocol. The price of ALGO exploded, reaching an ATH of $3.28 per token. One week before the event, Algorand kept its promise and made the code open-source. This marks the culmination of efforts from Algorand and the Algorand Foundation.

They conducted the first Algorand auction, where people could buy 25 million ALGO tokens at a starting price of $10 per token. The auction was programmed to last for 4000 blocks, or 5 hours, and the clearing price was eventually set at $2.40. Due to the hype, the auction lasted for 3 hours and 37 minutes before all tokens were sold.

On July 17, 2019, Tether was the first stablecoin to integrate and deploy its USDT on the Algorand network. At the same time, Algorand had become a member of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA). This marks the first institutional partnership for Algorand. In the collaboration, Algorand would help ISDA develop its infrastructure on the blockchain.

One month after the mainnet, Algorand has partnered with World Chess, becoming the first blockchain partner of the FIDE Grand Prix Series. Although the use case was more like an experiment (recording chess matches on the blockchain), it served to demonstrate the capabilities of Algorand and it was also a good opportunity for promotion.


With the network live, it was time for Algorand to attract more people to its network via a staking reward program. The Algorand Foundation offered 200 million ALGO, distributed over the course of 6-month periods, a total of two years, to members who register.

During September, the first Economic Improvement Proposals started flowing in from the community. The relay nodes voted on-chain to: suspend daily rewards for 30 days and subsequently extended the period. Algorand burned 19.9 million ALGO tokens which haven’t been claimed and investors have been refunded.

On November 20, Algorand launched its protocol update to enable the development of dapps. People could create assets like currencies, stablecoins, and NFTs on Algorand network. Atomic transfers have been introduced to the protocol as well as Algorand smart contracts (ASC1).

Following the upgrade, developers could build their own transaction rules and smart contracts.  Algorand 2.0 would pave the way to DeFi apps. At the end of the year, relay nodes voted to have a longer vesting schedule.

As a result, the model has moved from a 2-year timeframe to 5+ years, but with the opportunity for that timeframe to be reduced if certain conditions were met. The reasoning was to ensure the long-term price stability of ALGO.

Algorand in 2020

In the beginning of 2020, Algorand introduced a new concept for the network: co-chains. The idea is to achieve interoperability between public and private blockchains.

The premise of the private chain is that it’s totally independent from the public chain, it shields transactions from all outsiders, has its own validators, and runs its own Algorand consensus algorithm. Other than that, the private chain benefits from all the features offered by the Algorand permissionless protocol.

In April, Algorand had come up with its own stateless blockchain model. Blockchains systems inherently capture in formation such as public keys, account balances, or smart contract data. In the long term, the state becomes harder to manage due to its increasing size. From there, the only way to scale is by increasing the hardware requirements (see Solana).

To solve this problem, Algorand has created a scheme called “Pointproofs”. The basic idea is that Pointproofs enable a third party to aggregate a collection of proofs into a single proof. For the user, this results in a seamless experience when sending transactions or using dapps, regardless of the complexity.


On May 20, Algorand network announced its first use case for insurtech by partnering with Attestiv. The company would use Algorand to store its data (digital media, sensor data, metadata) on the blockchain, making it tamperproof. While the event was small compared to the future partnerships, it gave ALGO holders hope that Algorand would thrive in the enterprise sector.

On August 19, Algorand announced a new upgrade at the smart contract level that would enable scalable dapps. The key element is the addition of useful smart contract functionality, joining existing capabilities such as Atomic transfers, stateless contracts and Algorand Standard Assets. One year after the mainnet, Algorand had 400 companies joining the ecosystem, several assets  integrated and a CBDC partnership.

Interestingly, Algorand network had been selected by Marshall Islands to serve as the bedrock for their upcoming CBDC. Following extensive research, Algorand was selected based on the network speed, finality and its sound fundamentals.


On November 24, Silvio Micali formulated a proposal to further decentralize Algorand. Until then, token holders could participate in the consensus, but not governance. Micali described the governance mechanism in depth, and mentioned that Algorand Foundation would not be involved in the process. The first step was to decentralize the decision for grants proposed to the Foundation.

By the end of 2020, Algorand partnered with several companies such as Circle, Planet Lab and Monerium (no ties with Monero) to enable end-to-end digital payments. The initiative would help Algorand enable payments in Euro and the dollar using the network’s 5 second TPS and low costs (€0.0001).

Algorand in 2021

2021 was the year in which Algorand focused more on becoming the infrastructure for CBDCs.

The challenges with implementing a CBDC make it a gargantuan task: central banks and regulators need to coordinate, tremendous security implications are at stake, and it needs to exist a balance between centralization/decentralization.

In a bid to answer to these challenges, Algorand has come up with a CBDC paper, in an effort to educate public leaders facing the reality of a digital economy. The paper describes how to design an efficient CBDC, the economic considerations when issuing a CBDC, as well as the benefits of issuing a CDBC with Algorand.


A CBDC model would provide central banks with full control of the system, meaning central banks would have their own validators running on a private network. Furthermore, CBDCs would need to be interoperable with other payment systems and remain open-source. In its paper, Algorand writes that CBDCs would help to global financial inclusion and would greatly reduce operating costs.

2021 was also the year where NFTs became mainstream, with millions of dollars being transacted over blockchain networks. Algorand promoted itself as being the perfect chain to issue NFTs for one simple reason: the network can’t be forked.

In the event of a hard fork on a network like Ethereum, users would receive 2 versions of their NFTs, and that’s an issue because NFTs are supposed to be unique. If miners agree to go with the new version of the chain, that would render the NFT on the original chain worthless. Ultimately, if an NFT can be duplicated, there is nothing really digitally unique about it.


Algorand would prove to be the most secure chain to issue NFTs. Despite its qualities, Algorand would see modest NFT adoption on its network from retailers. The network compensated on the enterprise adoption side.

On May 12, Algorand made headlines for its partnership with SIAE (Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori), Italy’s largest copyright collecting agency. SIAE would create more than 4 million NFTs on Algorand representing the rights of 95,000+ member authors. The results were so satisfactory that SIAE would publish the results with the international community to promote the decentralized management of rights metadata.

On July 28, Algorand would have its first top DeFi app go live. Named Yieldly, the dapp leverages Algorand’s features to provide multi-assets staking and cross-chain swapping. The dapp was founded in 2020, and is backed by well-known institutional investors such as LongHash Ventures, Borderless Capital, CMS Holdings, and many others.


On August 25, Algorand has integrated with WalletConnect, which unlocked the ability for Algorand users to review and scan transactions from a QR.

Algorand in 2022

The current year has been a powerful one for Algorand. The network has released a series of upgrades that would scale development.

The first upgrade was the contract-to-contract functionality, vastly improving the amount of dapps developers can build. Contract-calling capability would help AMMs get the best swap rate across multiple networks, feature which was not previously possible.

The second biggest upgrade was launched in September. Algorand 3.9 introduces State Proofs that enable trustless interoperability and 6000 TPS, from 1200 TPS. State Proofs help make It easier to develop cross-chain products such as bridges, and enhance the security of these services.


In addition, State Proofs are quantum-secure, making Algorand one of the first blockchain networks in history that keeps data safe, even from quantum computers.

Algorand in 2023

The year 2023 has been a silent year for Algorand in terms of public attention. The network, however, went through several improvements.

On March 22, Algorand released Conduit, a new tool for blockchain data access. Conduit, a modular plugin-based tool, marked a significant upgrade from the previous one-size-fits-all Indexer. It offered dapps the ability to retrieve precisely the data they required in a cost-effective deployment.

Conduit's primary function is to track data from the blockchain and provide accessibility to the off-chain world. Whenever a new block is created on-chain, Conduit receives updates about every change in every piece of state since the prior block, encompassing new accounts created, updated app states, deleted boxes, and more.


Another important upgrade marked the release of go-algorand 3.1. The go-algorand 3.16 upgrade has significantly improved the transaction speed on Algorand. Following this upgrade, the average transaction completion time has been reduced to an impressive 3.3 seconds. This achievement was made possible by minimizing block latency to 3.3 seconds while ensuring instantaneous block finality.

This enhancement translates into a superior user experience for applications developed on Algorand, akin to the seamless experiences seen in traditional Web2 applications. Notably, this is achieved without compromising on the robust security and decentralization features that blockchain technology inherently provides.

Algorand is in a constant growth cycle, and network participants like us can earn more $ALGO without too much hassle or technical knowledge, right from the comfort of our homes. 

Learn how to do that in our Algorand Mining & Staking guide, which includes the exact steps and best methods of earning more crypto like $ALGO in 2024 and beyond.

Ultimate Web3 Automation

A lil' more goodness

Mining and Staking NEAR (NEAR)

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58 min

Mining and Staking Arweave (AR)

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $AR

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $DOGE

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58 min

Mining and Staking Evmos (EVMOS)

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Harmony (ONE) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $ONE

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58 min

Investing in Astar (ASTR)

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $HBAR

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58 min

Investing in Kava (KAVA)

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58 min

Mining and Staking Waves (WAVES)

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $KAVA

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58 min

Investing in Evmos (EVMOS)

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58 min

Investing in Internet Computer (ICP)

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of BNB Chain (BNB) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Polygon (MATIC) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

Investing in Dogecoin (DOGE)

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58 min

Mining and Staking Cardano (ADA)

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $LTC

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $MATIC

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58 min

Investing in Ethereum (ETH)

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58 min

Mining and Staking BNB Chain (BNB)

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $BTC

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $ATOM

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Flow (FLOW) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $ASTR

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $ICP

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58 min

Mining and Staking Internet Computer (ICP)

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58 min

Investing in Arweave (AR)

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58 min

Mining and Staking Flow (FLOW)

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Hedera (HBAR) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

Investing in Polkadot (DOT)

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58 min

Mining and Staking Bitcoin (BTC)

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Mining and Staking Polkadot (DOT)

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Summary, History and Status of TRON (TRX) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Celo (CELO)

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Solana (SOL) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $SOL

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58 min

Investing in Helium (HNT)

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $XTZ

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Stacks (STX) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Litecoin (LTC)

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58 min

Investing in Celo (CEL)

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Investing in Litecoin (LTC)

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58 min

Mining and Staking Litecoin (LTC)

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58 min

Investing in Filecoin (FIL)

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $EVMOS

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How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $AURORA

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58 min

Investing in Bitcoin (BTC)

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58 min

Investing in Aurora (AURORA)

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $MINA

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58 min

Mining and Staking Secret (SCRT)

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58 min

Investing in Avalanche (AVAX)

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Summary, History and Status of Avalanche (AVAX) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $GLMR

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58 min

Mining and Staking Kadena (KDA)

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Astar (ASTR)

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Summary, History and Status of Polkadot (DOT) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

Investing in Moonbeam (GLMR)

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58 min

Mining and Staking Algorand (ALGO) in 2024

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58 min

Investing in BNB Chain (BNB)

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Secret (SCRT) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

Investing in Waves (WAVES)

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of NEAR (NEAR) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $NEAR

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How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $FLOW

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Investing in Hedera (HBAR)

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58 min

Mining and Staking Dogecoin (DOGE)

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Investing in Harmony (ONE)

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How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $ALGO

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Summary, History and Status of Filecoin (FIL)

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How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $ETH

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How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $CEL

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Summary, History and Status of Dogecoin (DOGE) — 2024 Edition

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How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $HNT

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Mining and Staking Aurora (AURORA)

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Mining and Staking Moonbeam (GLMR)

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Mining and Staking Ethereum (ETH)

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58 min

Mining and Staking Kava (KAVA)

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58 min

Investing in Stacks (STX)

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Arweave (AR) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Moonbeam (GLMR) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

Mining and Staking Solana (SOL)

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58 min

Investing in Polygon (MATIC)

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58 min

Mining and Staking Cosmos (ATOM)

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How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $TRX

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Investing in Cosmos (ATOM)

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Summary, History and Status of Bitcoin (BTC) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

Mining and Staking Stacks (STX)

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Mina (MINA) — 2024 Edition

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58 min

Investing in Secret (SCRT)

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58 min

Investing in Solana (SOL)

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58 min

How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $STX

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Cardano (ADA) — 2024 Edition

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Summary, History and Status of Ethereum (ETH) — 2024 Edition

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Investing in Flow (FLOW)

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Mining and Staking Harmony (ONE)

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Investing in Tezos (XTZ)

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How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $AVAX

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How to Store, Transfer and Bridge $DOT

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Summary, History and Status of Aurora (AURORA)

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58 min

Investing in Cardano (ADA)

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58 min

Investing in Algorand (ALGO)

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58 min

Summary, History and Status of Internet Computer (ICP) — 2024 Edition

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58 min