BrightNode is bringing its SME and startup clients access to an emerging, high-performance layer-1 ecosystem.

Introduction

BrightNode is excited to announce the addition of Algorand to its Layer-1 blockchain expertise, opening up new opportunities for its SME and startup clients interested in delivering Algorand-based products and services. 

Among the existing blockchain platforms, Algorand ranks among the most interesting for some crucial aspects: speed of transaction, low fees and rich ecosystem. 

These characteristics make it a serious competitor for established and well-known smart contract platforms like Ethereum.

The Algorand blockchain and ALGO cryptocurrency

Algorand is a blockchain smart contract platform and cryptocurrency. It was founded in 2017 by Silvio Micali, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  ALGO, the platform's native currency, is used to secure the Algorand blockchain and pay processing fees for Algorand-based transactions. Algorand can host other cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based projects, making it a direct competitor to Ethereum. 

Algorand is fast, low cost, decentralized, carbon negative, and has advanced smart contract capabilities. The platform can process thousands of transactions per second at very low transaction fees.

Algorand serves also as the infrastructure layer on which we can build crypto networks, decentralized apps (dapps) and crypto tokens. It is one of the most prominent layer 1 blockchains available in the crypto ecosystem.

Sustainability

Algorand claims to be a green blockchain; in fact it is carbon negative as the platform purchases carbon credits that more than offset its already minimal carbon emissions.

The blockchain trilemma

Algorand solves the blockchain trilemma (scalability, decentralization, security).

Bitcoin, Ethereum and other traditional cryptocurrency networks are typically very congested. Transactions processing is slow and expensive to make. 

The Algorand network aims to solve this problem by reducing gas fees and making transactions faster.

Algorand’s high performance is mostly due to the Pure Proof-of-Stake (PPoS) consensus mechanism. In PPoS, users' power is proportional to their stake and participating users are randomly selected to propose/validate blocks.

The Algorand Foundation

The Algorand Foundation’s mission is to enable an inclusive, decentralized, and borderless global economy based on the Algorand blockchain technology.

The Foundation is therefore dedicated to helping fulfill the global promise of the Algorand blockchain by taking responsibility for its sound monetary supply economics, decentralized governance, and healthy and prosperous open-source ecosystem.

The Algorand Ecosystem

The Algorand blockchain supports a variety of different projects, many of them focused on decentralized finance like decentralized lending and trading. The Algorand blockchain also supports other cryptocurrencies such as stablecoins and even a digital national currency.

Algorand is enabling the simple creation of next generation financial products and protocols. 

More than 2,000 global organizations are currently leveraging its technology.

Fintech companies, startups, financial services, institutions, and defi organizations are currently building on Algorand. The robust community is creating a healthy ecosystem of organizations and products in line with Algorand's longer term vision for the future of finance.

The ecosystem includes a growing number of protocols, services and applications from a variety of domains: DeFi, gaming, environment, government, payment systems, stablecoins, notarization, entertainment, NFT marketplaces, etc.

For those who plan to develop solutions on top of the platform, the Algorand developer portal provides robust documentation and technical information to develop new applications that can further enrich the existing ecosystem. 

Conclusions

Algorand is an emerging blockchain platform whose success is mainly due to low fees and high performance. The growing number of projects in different domains that are relying on the platform and its ecosystem demonstrates its success.

BrightNode’s collaboration with the Algorand technical team makes us uniquely well-positioned to assist clients in developing and delivering Algorand-based products and services to market.