"Algorand is just another cryptocurrency." Only if that was true but it isn't. Algorand isn't just another L1 blockchain, it is much more than that. It is trying to create an ecosystem which is simple in such that any ordinary person can get used to it (create wallet, create own assets and mint NFT) with very little research and yet very stable, secure, flexible and scalable. Even El Salvador is using Algorand to develop its blockchain infrastructure. There are so many great projects build on Algorand like Yieldly, AlgoFi and many more to come. So, What's good?

Well for starters, the transaction fees is just 0.001 Algo (0.00141$). Beat that!. This makes Algorand ideal for micro-transactions, with negligible fees, so it is ideal for real life use like transacting for movie-tickets etc. Hell, maybe even to tip someone. Apparently, that 0.001 Algo* is only charged so that the blockchain is not affected by DDOS attack. In layman's terms, it is an attack where a malicious user will send lots and lots of 0 Algo transactions on the network thereby leading to heavy network usage and effectively taking the whole network down. Charging a little amount will make it costly for an attacker to DDOS because that 0.001 algo for every transaction will build up. And the amount of transaction that Algorand blockchain can process per second, it is rather very very expensive for making a successful attack.

Algorand is PPOS (Pure Proof-Of-Stake) blockchain. It is permissionless and rewards every wallet (no matter online or offline) if it holds atleast 1 Algo. The rewards are not auto-compounded though. You need to do a transaction (no matter a transfer or adding an ASA) for the rewards to be transferred to your wallet. You are allowed to do a 0 Algo transaction to yourself if you want to trigger the reward!!!! The technical details of Algorand blockchain can be found here. However, the free rewards will be gone by the end of this quarter. Instead, the rewards will be disbursed to user who participate in the governance.

What is governance?

Well, for developing and adding further features to the blockchain, Algorand Foundation will hold governance session quarterly. For every session, they will ask the participants to vote on certain topic. Then the votes for each session is calculated and respective action is taken. For each governance period, a certain amount of reward is disbursed to the participants. More about governance can be found here.

The first session which happened last quarter of last year had an APR of 16.44% with a total of aprrox. 1.73 billion committed algos. The current session has more than 3.1 Billion committed algos!!! 

What are commited Algos? When you participate in the governance session, you decide to keep a certain amount of Algos in your wallet for the whole session (plus 1 extra Algo). The sessions reward you will get will depend on how many algo you committed. The great (and the worse too) thing is that your funds are in no way locked. They will stay in your wallet and you are free to spend them. But if your total balance becomes less than the amount you committed, you will become ineligible for the reward.

ASA

Now coming to the last part of this article. What is ASA? ASA stands for Algorand Smart Assets. These are the tokens that are built on top of algorand blockchain. Just like building ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum gives you all the benifit of Ethereum blockchain, you can also build on top of Algorand Blockchain. This allows you to take the benifit of almost zero transaction fee, a very fast network (1200 tps but remember Tps should not be the only factor for you to decide the network efficiency) and low carbon footprint. Here is a medium article showing how easy it is to build on Algorand Blockchain. ASA supports creation of NFT's (as well as fraction NFT's !!)

Where to HODL Algo?

There is an official wallet from Algorand foundation which is open-source and it works pretty well. Adding ASA to the wallet is so easy that it deserves the CHEF-KISS. Simply click on add asset, then search for the ASA that you want to add. Every ASA has its unique Asset_id. A 0.001 Algo fees is charged for adding an asset which again is almost zero. That's it. You are all ready for transacting the particular asset from your wallet.

Remember that the Wallet stores your private key LOCALLY. This means that the Private Key never leaves your wallet. So, When creating the wallet, store the passphrase securely in someplace safe. If the passphrase is lost then there is no way to recover the Wallet.

*The 0.001 Algo that is charged goes into a holding account. Currently it sits there ideal. Most probably there will a vote in some future govenance session on what to do with it!!!

I just want to say that I am in no way affliated to Algorand Foundation whatsoever. However, I do love this project for its mere simplicity. Will write about other cryptos that I love soon. Till then, Peace