In this review we will take a look at what algorand is all about, how it works and who is behind the project. We'll also show you practical examples of where you can use it and how you can buy algosend.
Algorand has no public code repository, however they have stated that the code will be released after their main net is operational . Keep in mind that this may take a while as Algorand's testnet was launched on December 2017. Despite this, there are several reasons why you should keep an eye on ALGO. Let's go ahead and look at them now.
The team behind Algorand
The project is headed by Silvio Micali who is an MIT cryptographer best known for his work on zero-knowledge proofs which are used in Zcash to verify transactions without revealing any data about them. He also runs the cryptography department at MIT media labs. Other notable names are Stephen Akers, Algorand's chief scientist who was part of the Google Brain team and worked at IBM research with Micali. Dr. Avinash Lakshman is Algorand's Co-founder & Head Technical Architect; he also co-founded two successful companies - ProtonMail (secure email) and DataStax (real time data platform).
Other members on the team include Ann Miura-Ko who is a partner at Floodgate Fund that has invested in several successful projects such as Lyft, Ayasdi and Xamarin; also there is Andrew Miller , an associate professor at University of Illinois Urbana Champaign who specializes in cryptoeconomics, protocols and distributed systems. You can take a look at their complete team here.
Algosend ICO campaign
The initial coin offering (ICO) of algosend has not started yet , but if you are interested in it, you can sign up to the mailing list on Algorand's website where you will receive all information about the pre-sale and the public token sale.
If you've ever bought something online, then chances are that you already used one of these cryptocurrency payment platforms like Coinbase, Bitpay or Blockchain.info . They allow merchants to accept bitcoin, ethereum or any other digital currency as form of payment. The transaction is usually quite fast; however it takes time for bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) to be confirmed.
Algorand takes a different approach in that it doesn't need any miners, proof-of-work system or any other type of verifications. Instead the platform is based on Byzantine agreement which allows for distributed consensus. This may be hard to understand initially, so let's take a look at how this distributed consensus works and what exactly makes algosend better than bitcoin.
The Byzantine Agreement Algorithm
You can read more about this here , but basically proof-of-stake powers the algorithm where every player has equal power and all transactions are validated by a specific number of nodes. There is also no incentive for "bad" behavior since there are no miners looking to earn money from mining transactions. This means that there is no transaction fee, and that the process of sending money through Algorand takes a few seconds to complete.
In addition, algosend is stable over time as "bad" actors have been removed from the system so those with malicious intentions cannot tamper with data or perform transactions on faulty accounts. In theory this should also reduce the number of fraudulent activities as it would be extremely hard to corrupt the entire network.
While both cryptocurrencies are competing in terms of bringing blockchain technology to businesses and disrupting payments industry, they differ quite a bit since one uses proof-of-work protocol and charges a per transaction fee while the other operates without miners and is fast and free.
What do you think about Algorand? Do you think it's ready to be used as a payment system today or do we need additional technological breakthroughs first before this protocol can be adopted by major corporations and merchants worldwide? Let us know in the comments section.
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