About Algorand (ALGO)

Created by a cadre of like-minded scholars, the Algorand network bills itself as “next-generation” blockchain technology, employing an open-source, permission-less, less-energy-intensive Proof-of-Stake (PoS) approach.

ALGO is the network's native token. It's used to perform governance tasks and power the entire ecosystem.

The Algorand platform facilitates the creation of smart contracts for building decentralized applications (dApps) that in theory can scale to billions of users. Its framework is based on the core concepts of accessibility, immediate process, direct use, adoption, and efficiency, RippleCoinNews’ Gracie Perez said. But Algorand is bearing down on perhaps finally being able to create a rapid and flexible network without losing decentralization.

The network is starting to assert itself within the payment networks space, with an attention-grabbing use case coming by way of the Marshall Islands in the South Pacific. The former U.S. territory plans to issue a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), running on the Algorand network, which is said to be capable of handling more than one million transactions per day, as of late 2020.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Silvio Micali, along with Stony Brook University professor Jing Chen, published the Algorand white paper in 2017. Micali is a past Turing Award recipient, and widely recognized as one of the most innovative creators within the crypto industry. He’s credited with helping to hone the science of cryptography by formalizing some of its core building blocks. 

Self-sufficient, decentralized, able to support a range of applications, Algorand was built to compete against Bitcoin and Ethereum, only faster and more cost-efficient. ALGO tokens get woven into the network's economy with each new block, distributed to all those who hold a certain amount in their wallets.

The network enables a range of Layer One blockchains to provide advanced smart contracts, Co-Chains, and similar integral support systems across the entire network.

Micali once told Forbes: “Traditional application of cryptography to blockchain is to prevent an adversary from altering the content of a block, but with Algorand we use it for a ‘cryptographic sortition.’” 

What’s that? He explained. A cryptographic sortition is a selection of “unpredictable” committee members who “show up” to provide proof that they belong to the committee; this then ensures that the blockchain is highly scalable and distributed.

With a current total of 14,691,604 addresses, Algorand hosts a fully decentralized network. 

Users can commit their ALGO tokens to help boost the governance of the network and to perform a range of transactions compatible with the applications and technology. Alongside typical governance contributions, the Algorand network also relies upon nodes to prioritize the decentralization of the entire network.

There are relay nodes and participation nodes. Relay nodes operate as network hubs by ensuring that connections are maintained with other nodes, using high-performance network connections. They decongest noise within the system by accumulating protocol messages from participation nodes and other relay nodes to perform a range of validation steps, before propagating only valid messages. Anyone can operate a relay node.

Participation nodes are tasked with maintaining consensus protocol and communicating with other participation nodes through the communication paths outlined by relay nodes. Additionally, participation nodes also propose and vote on various blocks on the behalf of a user’s stake within the consensus algorithm. Anyone can operate a participation node.

The current price of ALGO

As of early November 2021, ALGO was trading just shy of $1.90. In late October 2021, ALGO endured a steep decline. Although for the 12 months ending the end of October 2021, ALGO rose some 700%.

It reached its all-time high of $3.56 in June of 2019, according to CoinGecko.

How the price of ALGO is determined

ALGO’s maximum total supply is 10 billion tokens, according to the Algorand Foundation, a non-profit overseeing the protocol. Algorand maintains a block explorer tracking its circulating supply. Algo tokenomics, the foundation said, will “benefit from the precise allocation of the funds originally slated for sales and that have instead been ultimately allocated to efforts and areas such as community incentives, governance participation, and ecosystem support, giving certainty and predictability to the Algo tokenomics, and always with a rate of distribution planned to avoid inflation and maintain scarcity.”

What the bulls are saying

If the price turns up from the current level or the support line and breaks above the triangle, it will suggest that bulls are in control, CoinTelegraph said in late October 2021.

The bullish alignment of daily Estimated Moving Averages (EMAs) has risen higher, which indicates “a bull run,” The Market Periodical said in early October 2021.

The constant increase in ALGO supply has historically suppressed its price; however, this does seem to be slowly changing, according to Coin Bureau.

What the bears are saying

ALGO’s historical price isn’t pretty… due to the fact that ALGO began trading in the middle of the previous bull market, said Coin Bureau.

With the price of ALGO was hovering below $2, bearish momentum was taking hold in the market and it was expected that the ALGO price could head lower, the Economy Watch said in late September of 2021.

ALGO’s price looked to be caught in a very steep bearish triangle, FXStreet said in early autumn of 2021.