Algorand

Algorand is a public and decentralized digital currency and blockchain platform. It was designed by Silvio Micali, a Turing Award-winning computer scientist. Micali and his team at MIT launched the protocol in 2019.

Algorand aims to solve some of the technical barriers in the blockchain industry, particularly around scalability, security, and decentralization. The platform uses a consensus algorithm called Pure Proof of Stake (PPoS). It’s designed to confirm transactions quickly and secure the network efficiently, even when there’s a large number of users.

In a PPoS system, every token holder can propose or vote on a new block and the weight of their vote is proportional to their stake (the amount of currency they hold). The main advantage of this approach is that it’s highly scalable and doesn’t require significant computational power, like Proof of Work systems (such as Bitcoin).

Furthermore, Algorand’s consensus protocol is designed to be secure against attackers, even if a large fraction of the stake is in malicious hands, as long as honest users are randomly selected and the majority of the stake is not concentrated in a small number of users.

The Algorand platform enables the development of smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) and it has a native cryptocurrency called Algo. The Algorand Foundation provides governance and evolution of the Algorand network.