Posts about Algorand
Many of us invested in Algorand. I also bought some. In 2020/2021, the entire subreddit was insanely bullish on Algorand. It was also mentioned all over social media and on many news websites.
But to say that Algorand has been a terrible performer would be an understatement. Some facts:
Algo is almost 96% down from the November 2021 high
Algo is down over 96% from all time high June 2019
Algo is down about 99% against Bitcoin since June 2019 and keeps making new lows
Algo is down 97% against Ethereum since January 2020 and keeps making new lows
Algo is the second worst performing top 50 altcoin in the past 90 days. Bitcoin is up 28.5%, while Algo is down 34.2%.
So what can we learn from this to ensure that we do not repeat the same mistakes?
I'll share mine and then am looking forward to yours.
I will never again buy a cryptocurrency with poor tokenomics. Algo had over 500% inflation in 2021 while the staking rewards were nowhere near that. That is SO MUCH extra selling pressure. I now refuse to buy a project where staking does not cover inflation.
I will avoid cryptocurrencies that go for expensive yet meaningless partnerships. Algo got a Fifa World Cup partnership that was worth nothing. FTX and CDC did something similar by getting naming rights on stadiums (Miami Heat Basketball Team, Staples Center). This is paid for with users' money. So essentially current investors are the cash cow to draw in more idiots.
I will avoid projects that are heavily shilled here. Algo, LRC, ONE, LUNA, CRO, VET, CKB, Neo, and the list goes on. The inverse r/CryptoCurrency graveyard is heavily populated.* Quite a lot of this shilling was not natural.
*... but now everyone is bearish on Algo. What if it inverses to the bull side? ๐
The latest upgrades:
Smart contract compatibility with contract to contract calls.ย? This allows complex dApps to be built that can efficiently and trustlessly interact with other smart contract based dApps to extend functionality and usability.ย? Additional details and background on this tech can be found here.ย?
Post-quantum secure Falcon Keys, Algorandโs first major milestone on its path towards trustless cross-chain interoperability.ย? These keys will, in the near future, be used to generate State Proofs, a new blockchain infrastructure that will allow Algorand to be trustlessly accessed in low-power environments like mobile phones, smart watches, and on other blockchains. For more background on State Proofs, please see an overview here.ย?
Developers are now able to build complex dapps for the Algorand ecosystem with smart contract-to-contract calling and network participants can take their first step towards trustless cross-chain interoperability with quantum-secure keys for the upcoming State Proof technology. These network upgrades come on the heels of a $20 million incentive program from the Algorand Foundation focused on developer tooling and EVM compatibility, putting Algorand at the forefront of blockchain interoperability and post-quantum security while providing features for even more advanced decentralized applications.ย?
These features add to Algorandโs already advanced tech, high performance and robust developer resources. Smart contracts on Algorand can be written in Python or Reach, making it accessible for developers of all skillsets.ย?
Algorand has experienced zero downtime since launch, helping it become the blockchain of choice for hundreds of organizations launching DeFi protocols, NFTs, payment solutions, regulated digital assets, and more. The network supports applications that can scale to billions of participants, all on a high-speed, carbon-negative, secure and stable blockchain.ย?
It's September 2021: the Algorand price just hit $2.38, Algonauts are everywhere, and the CryptoCurrency sub is best described as a living shill for the Algorand blockchain.
The Excitement is enticing and contagious as Algorand locks in one partnership after another, but behind the scenes... A Series of Unfortunate Events are Begining to Unwind, and what was once a promising blockchain to laugh and make jokes about - is quietly becoming a disaster for investors.
This post is not a technical breakdown of Algorand nor is this post meant to fud the future of Algorand. This post is about the absolute disaster that continues to unravel for investors of the Algorand Blockchain.
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If someone told you about Algorand they probably also told you it was founded by Silvio Micali "a cryptography pioneer, Turing award winner and MIT professor". Algorand launched in 2019 and hails itself as a Pure Proof of Stake (PPOS). The most notable difference from traditional Proof of Stake (POS), is that the creator of the next block is selected randomly irrespective of their total stake. As the name implies this approach is touted by Algorand supporters as a more fair and decentralized version of POS.
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Like most crypto projects Algorand absolutely blew up in 2021, it started the year under $.40 and it ended the yearover 4x around ~$1.65. However unlike most crypto projects that peaked in early November Algorand peaked in September.
https://i.redd.it/0jgjkqekoloa1.pngWhat sounds like an interesting side note, holds a much darker truth for investors - Algorand inflated by 533% in 2021, as the circulating supply jumped from 1.19B to 6.37B - and 12% in 2022 from 6.37B to 7.14B. If you line up the graph for the increase in circulating supply to price, you can see the September 2021 peak lined up with a large surge in the circulating supply and a steady drop in price since.
https://i.redd.it/oqzgptvwemoa1.png------------------------------
In January of 2022 the prior CEO of the Algorand Foundation was quietly ousted from the company, and replaced with the new CEO Staci Warden. The replacement has been incredibly controversial inside the Algorand Community as the new Foundation CEO thought one of the major priorities for the Algorand Foundation was to focus on PR.
https://twitter.com/StaciW_DC/status/1499202881647489025Additionally she's been largely criticized for acting childish and immature in her public statements - with statements that are meant to create "baseless hype" which leads to Algorand believers holding even larger underwater bags. If you have ever heard of Staci before it's probably for her, "Nike" tweet.
https://i.redd.it/ds8gyyfxuqoa1.pngThis one word tweet, lead people to believe big things were imminent for Algorand Investors with a potential Nike Partnership. Instead it was later revealed that Staci had hired a former Nike Executive as the Chief Marketing Officer for Algorand.
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If you are familiar with Algorand Tokenomics you probably know, Algorand has a max supply of 10B and the beginning Centralization of Tokens with the Algorand team was one of the worst things about Algorand.
https://i.redd.it/1r9ia3fgipoa1.pngAs you can see, Algorand itself was one of the initial largest holder of Algorand. When a Crypto organization needs to raise funds - they do that by selling their tokens, and that's exactly what the Algorand Foundation did. To the Foundations credit, they make bi-annual Transparency Reports that detail how much they sold and sometimes what those funds were used for. Below is a breakdown of the sales from October 2020 - September 2022 time period. Links to Transparency Reports information was gathered from: 1, 2, 3, 4 .
Numbers in AlgoIn the Past two years the Algorand Foundation has sold 228M Algo and Paid their Board of Directors another 3.65M Algo. Important: these numbers do not include Algo given out for for ecosystem development - That includes another ~400M Algo over two years, some of which may have also been sold.
The past few years have been huge for Partnerships with Algorand, it seemed like every week the Algorand Foundation was announcing a new partnership. But most of these were just glorified real-world Sponsorships that Algorand paid for, that came with an Agreement to do do something on the Algorand blockchain, like FIFAs NFT flop.
https://i.redd.it/df9n4vqiypoa1.pngAnnounced in May 2022, Algorand became the official blockchain partner of FIFA. Immediately after the announcement the price of Algorand spiked 20%, but what investors had hoped would be game changing for the Algorand network - ended up as just another disappointment. In September 2022, FIFA launched an NFT project on the Algorand Blockchain - with over 205,000 mints, at a cost of $5 each and low resale interest: the project just ended up being a further $1M cash grab for FIFA.
The Algorand Logo was not on display as a partner during the Fifa world cup. Additionally there was not an ad or Algorand TV Spot during the world cup, something Algorand supporters had hoped to see.
Under the guidance of the new Foundation CEO Staci and a pivot to focus on PR - Algorand the "Greenest Blockchain", planned a huge marketing stunt for Earth Day 2022. They rented the time square billboards for one hour to black them out. Then they intermittently flashed them Green with the Algorand logo and text about how Algo energy consumption compares to BTC.
Source: https://shortyawards.com/7th-impact/algorand-earth-day?trk=public_post_feed-article-contentOf course the money for this publicity stunt, had to come from somewhere, and that money came from dumping Algo on Investors. From April - September 2022. The Algorand Foundation spent $22.2M on "Marketing and other forms of ecosystem promotion" which was raised by selling Algorand. In the prior six months, they only spent 9M in the same category.
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In late February MyAlgo was hacked and some of the largest holders on Algorand saw over $9M in Crypto drained. A week later smaller holders on MyAlgo also started to see their crypto drained in what at the time seemed like Bots draining wallets.
Image taken from a /u/Odlavso postMyAlgo will be releasing the Preliminary Findings on the Hack tomorrow, Mar. 20th 2023.
In January 2022 TinyMan was hacked and $3M was drained from Algorand ASAs (tokens). Source
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With all of these problems and the continuous sell pressure from the Algorand Foundation - Algo's price has continued to drop over the bear market. One Algorand was selling for nearly ~$2.40 in Sep. 2021, and is now selling for $.22. If Algorand tech can turn around the nightmare that is occurring for Algorand investors is another question.... but one thing is certain - A series of Unfortunate Events has made Investing in Algorand an absolute nightmare.
TLDR: What was once a loved project shilled endlessly by this sub has quickly and quietly turned into a nightmare for anyone still left in the project.
Edit: Since some people think analyzing the failures of Algorand over the past 18 month is "hating Algo and Fud", please read the post again. The inevitable comments about "This sub hates Algo now, I Guess that Means It's Time to Buy" misses the entire point of this post.
I think we can all agree that tps numbers can be hard to compare between chains. Some chains can pin 10000s of native token transfers, but things get weird when you start to compare smart contracts.
I posted about this metric in the Algorand subreddit for determining throughput of different blockchains in the fairest way possible. That is using an AMM โuniswap-styleโ swap as the benchmark.
The authors of the medium article linked in my original post tested the smart contract throughput of some of the top smart contract platforms empirically, and they found that these chains to have the following AMM-swap tps limits:
Solana Mainnet Orca - 273 swaps
BSC pancakeswap - 195 swaps
Polygon quickswap - 95 swaps
Axax Trader Joe - 176 swaps
Celo Ubeswap - 50 swaps
Ethereum uniswap v2 - 18 swaps
Now Algorand can handle 1625 AMM swaps per second on Tinyman.
For reference that is:
6.0x more than Solana
8.3x more than Binance
9.2x more than Avalanche
17x more than Polygon
32.5x more than Celo
90.3x more than Ethereum
Algorand's new upgrade reduced block times from ~4.5s to ~3.8s per block, and there has already been a block with 25k transactions in it on the mainnet which translates to approximately 6500 tps.
Thanks to the insight of /u/abeliabedelia, based on the opcode budget limit for each transaction, it was determined that a tinyman swap requires 4 transactions, which means that Algorandโ TPS divided by 4 is approximately equal to its ability for smart contracts per second. (6500/4) = 1625 swaps per second.
And a special thanks to /u/sdcvbhjz for actually empirically checking and confirming the transaction count to be 4 standard transactions for each tinyman swap.
Edit: added words
I think we can all agree that tps numbers can be hard to compare between chains. Some chains can pin 10000s of native token transfers, but things get weird when you start to compare smart contracts.
Last year, I posted about this metric in the Algorand subreddits for determining throughput of different blockchains in the fairest way possible. That is using an AMM โuniswap-styleโ swap as the benchmark.
The authors of the medium article linked in my original post tested the smart contract throughput of some of the top smart contract platforms empirically, and they found that these chains to have the following AMM-swap tps limits:
Solana Mainnet Orca - 273 swaps
BSC pancakeswap - 195 swaps
Polygon quickswap - 95 swaps
Avax Trader Joe - 176 swaps
Celo Ubeswap - 50 swaps
Ethereum uniswap v2 - 18 swaps
Immediately after the 6k tps upgrade, I made a post about Algorand's ability to perform these AMM-style swaps which was estimated using the assumption that an AMM swap would require four txns per swap. This estimation came out to about 1625 swaps per second. At the time this was very impressive because the next fastest chain was Solana capped at being able to do 273 swaps per second.
People foreshadowed in the comments on one of my previous posts saying that it could definitely be done in less than four transactions, but I wanted to be conservative at the time.
Today, I saw on twitter that one of the developers from Vestige actually empirically tested this on the MAINNET and proved that Algorand can do 2881 AMM-style swaps per second. You can see the on-chain evidence in this block.
Algorand literally dwarfs these other chains in smart contract efficiency10.5x more than Solana Mainnet Orca - 273 swaps
15x more than BSC pancakeswap - 195 swaps
30x more than Polygon quickswap - 95 swaps
16x more than Avax Trader Joe - 176 swaps
57x more than Celo Ubeswap - 50 swaps
160x more than Ethereum uniswap v2 - 18 swaps
3.5x more than all of them combined - 807 swaps
If anybody can do this experiment for other popular Layer 1s like Tezos, NEAR, or Elrond or the Layer 2s on ETH, I would love to include them here.
Please be respectful in the comments :)
Algorand just took another fall off the cliff with the rest of the crypto market, and broke it's all time low. The prior All Time Low was, $.1029 which occured during the March 13th 2020 Covid Crypto Crash.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ALGO-USD/history?period1=1580515200&period2=1588809600&interval=1d&filter=history&frequency=1d&includeAdjustedClose=trueIn March 2020, the Algorand Circulating Supply was around ~700M. With a current circulating supply of over 7.2B, the supply has increased over 10X as the price has currently reached a new All Time Low. As every holder in Algorand is now at a loss.
Anyone thinking that Algorand has another 20x bull market up it's sleeve, should know a crypto with a supply that has increased over 10X is going to be harder to make big moves up. As the increase in supply will make it more difficult to have upwards momentum during a bull market.
https://i.redd.it/4hjgr3m1e45b1.pngTaking a look at what other crypto assets were doing on the March 13th 2020 Covid Crypto Crash.
BTC dropped to a low around: ~$4k
ETH dropped to a low around: ~$97
ADA dropped to a low around: ~$.02
Algo was at a low of around ~$.102
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https://i.redd.it/h1gzliqjf45b1.pngAlgorand now has a new low of ~$.0958 as all Algo holders are now underwater.
Algorand (ALGO) is a blockchain network (i.e. like ETH, ADA, SOL) that attempts to solve the "blockchain trilemma" - the ability of a network to be simultaneously scalable, secure and decentralised. ALGO's transactions per second (TPS) is 1k, with a 4s finality. Transactions cost 0.001 ALGO and the network already offers L1 smart contracts. However, the network will be upgraded in Q3-Q4 2021 to 45k/s TPS and 2.5s finality, ranking it toward the top for speed and scalability (Source). ALGO is currently experiencing ~1m transactions per day, placing it close to ETH in usage.
Main Conclusion: ALGO is, along with other projects, building and pioneering "Blockchain 3.0".
Algorand was founded by the Turing-award-winning, MIT professor Silvio Micali - and is backed by an excellent team with solid peer-reviewed academic prowess and publication record (Source 1) (Source 2). Silvio Micali conceived of and pioneered zero-knowledge proofs (among many other concepts) - a key and integral part of many cryptocurrencies. ALGO's respectable and trustworthy team boosts ALGO's chances of mass adoption, especially in the financial/institutional sectors - which appears to be ALGO's key target demographic.
Main Conclusion: ALGO's reliability, technology and ability to form partnerships is bolstered by the prestige and talent of its team.
Algorand uses pure proof-of-stake (PPoS) as a consensus mechanism, which employs algorithmic randomness and an improved form of Byzantine agreement to achieve decentralisation + security. PPoS differs from regular, delegated PoS (dPoS) in a number of ways, including:
No pooled validators (i.e. holders do not pledge their coins to a minority of super-validators). Theoretically, this minimises the drive toward centralisation that dPoS suffers from.
ALGO node running is permissionless (i.e. anybody with >1 ALGO can run a node, be a validator and participate in consensus).
PPoS is extremely lightweight (an ALGO node can be run on a low energy, $50 Raspberry Pi 4 - no expensive hardware or upfront cost is required).
A key feature of PPoS is the use of a randomised, weighted lottery that selects validators - known as VRF. This prevents any malicious actor(s) from attacking the network since the identities of the currently selected validators (who must be corrupted in order to carry out an attack) are not known until the block is already finalised. At 1-4k validators, PPoS is paradoxically superior to dPoS in terms of decentralisation - even if the latter had 50,000+ nodes. This is because validators under the dPoS system are long-lived and known. By contrast, ALGO's random selections vary on both a round and subround basis - that is, block proposers, voters, vote certifiers all vary, across all steps of creating a block - making it incredibly secure and decentralised.
Main Conclusion: ALGO is fast, scalable, secure while remaining decentralised.
ALGO currently offers liquid and seamless staking with an APY of ~5.75% - you simply hold ALGO in a non-custodial wallet and there is no lock-up period. On Oct 1st 2021, governance is launching and this will gradually replace staking. In exchange for voting on proposals, you will be rewarded with 7.5-33% APY (depending on the number of participants). For the initial 3 months, this APY will be in addition to the passive 5.75%, meaning you could theoretically earn up to ~38.75% APY. Governance will not only allow ALGO holders to vote on changes to the network, consensus mechanism or tokenomics - but also select projects to receive developer grants (see below).
Main Conclusion: ALGO offers highly competitive staking APYs and will further decentralise by handing voting power to holders.
PPoS is extremely lightweight - consuming ~0.000008 kWh per transaction (Source). That's ~70,000x less energy than ADA, and 116250000x less energy than BTC.
The energy that is used by ALGO is 100%+ offset via carbon credits. An on-chain sustainability oracle analyses the energy utilised by each node and a partnership with ClimateTrade (and others) then channels this funding into reforestation, peat management and wind-energy projects (Source).
Main Conclusion: ALGO is eco-friendly, and the world's first carbon-negative blockchain network.
Algorand is extremely accessible to developers (Source 1) (Source 2). Most importantly, it supports development in Python, C++, GO, Java, Javascript and RUST - removing the need for developers to retrain or learn new languages. ALGO's smart contract language, TEAL, is incredibly intuitive and can be accessed via Python (PyTEAL). As of TEAL 4.0, the language is now fully Turing-complete. In addition, Algorand offers comprehensive, detailed documentation and tutorials (for free) - see Source 1.
Moreover, ~$200-250m is available to support developers and 50+ grants have already been issued (Source). In total, ~600-650 companies are currently developing on ALGO and intend to deploy DApps/ALGO-based services (Source).
Yieldly, ALGO's first DeFi app launched, ~2-3 months ago and has enjoyed a high TVL since. A number of high profile projects, including ALGO's first DEX are launching shortly this year. Tokenized, real-estate projects (e.g. Lofty) are also currently operating successfully on ALGO.
Main Conclusion: ALGO has the ability to instantly attract developers, and is poised for an explosion in its ecosystem.
A key feature of Algorand is that it is forkless - it is mathematically impossible for ALGO to fork (Source). This is extremely important for real-world usage. Businesses accepting ALGO will not only experience rapid finality but can trust that the transaction is not on a forked branch of the blockchain that can be lost. This is even more important for NFTs. Thus far, ALGO has seen major adoption, recently including:
70M South Americans (potentially 200M soon) using ALGO to issue + store COVID-19 passports (Source)
BNext adopting ALGO for its $100b/year Spain<->Latin American remittance service (Source)
MAPay adopting ALGO to power $800m/year in healthcare payments for Bermuda (Source)
SIAE, one of the largest and oldest digital rights management companies in the world, launched 4.5m NFTs onto ALGO - representing the work of 10,000 artists and which will involve $100m/year in royalties (Source).
ALGO was recently featured in a World Economic Forum (WEF) report on cryptocurrency - listed as a recommended "VIP" blockchain that solves issues with BTC/ETH and proof-of-stake (Source). This document will be seen by institutions, banks and economists worldwide.
The list goes on and on Here.
Main Conclusion: ALGO is already being deployed for large-scale and institutional solutions.
ALGO has a maximum supply of 10,000,000,000 (10b) coins, and ~57% of the supply has been released so far. The schedule for coin release is detailed here: (Source). In addition to this, ALGO operates an 'accelerated vesting' algorithm: if the 30-day moving average (30MA) reaches a new ATH, the rate at which new ALGO is introduced into circulation is accelerated. The combined effect of this is a significant rate of annual inflation - and artifical suppression of price i.e. ALGO is not a short-term investment. Inflation will ease over time for 2 reasons:
Accelerated vesting is estimated to end in ~mid-2023
Coin release slows over time (see the above source), and we are already ~18-24mo ahead of schedule - so it's very unlikely that it will take until 2030 to finish the process.
Eventually, suppression of the price will cease. Until then, ALGO exploit this stability to build large-scale partnerships since less volatility is often viewed favourably.
Main Conclusion: ALGO's tokenomics are less than ideal, and the project is to be seen as a long-term investment only.
ALGO relies on a set of ~100-120 relay nodes to maintain high-speed transactions. Relay nodes are distinct from participation nodes (which participate + drive PPoS consensus) - they simply direct traffic (i.e. an ISP). In order to reward early backers (i.e. relay node runners), a large amount of ALGO was allocated to them. This raises concerns of centralisation. Algorand have acknowledged this, and are now opening up relay node running to the community (Source). This will, however, require more expensive hardware. The details are listed in the above source.
Moreover, the Algorand Foundation also own a significant portion of ALGO. However, the foundation is non-profit and this ALGO is used to fund R&D directly and issue developer grants. Because of this, the % the foundation own is diminishing over time.
Main Conclusion: ALGO appear to have favoured developing a stable blockchain and securing major partnerships first, before moving toward decentralisation second.
Final Conclusion: For a chain that launched only ~2y ago (June 2019), it has accomplished a great deal and its future, to me, seems extremely bright - however - only consider it if you're prepared to hold.