Do you want a simple participation in Algorand Governance, where you don't have to recommit each period and vote but still earn yield? Would you like to use xALGO of Folks Finance, which gives you these features, but at the same time you don't trust bridges and other chains like Binance and Avalanche?

Then this post is just for you! You can still use xALGO for participation in Algorand Governance with all its great features but hold it natively on Algorand. Read below how you can achieve this with a small trick. The trick is allowed by the Folks Finance platform, it is just not widely used and known. The trick is very simple - just mint xALGO from ALGO without then bridging it to another chain. Even though the process is very simple, Folks Finance does not support it because they want to focus the use of xALGO on other chains. That is why you need a little bit of tinkering. Depending on your tech skills, there are two options.

Option for the non-tech

It requires first minting xALGO through Folks Finance page on one of the supported chains. You can watch the Folks Academy video on mint&burn to see how this is done. In short, you have to connect with your Algorand wallet and the wallet of another chain. Mint the xALGO and redeem it on the other chain. Next, switch the chains and burn the xALGO you just minted on the other chain. After the burning has finished, do not click the redeem. Instead, click the link to your burn transaction on the other chain. Copy this transaction ID and go to Wormhole Portal bridge to the redeem option. Select the chain and paste the transaction ID, log in with your wallet and click recover. There you will need to connect also your Algorand wallet before being able to click redeem. You can check the official guide for details on how to do that. This will release your bridged xALGO tokens to your Algorand wallet. Now you have xALGO in your Algorand wallet!

Option for the tech-savvy

The whole process of bridging to another chain and back can be skipped, there just is not yet a simple user interface for this. But the smart contract allows this, as can be seen from Folks Finance documentation on Github. The function for minting xALGO is also included in Folks Finance SDK.
If you know how to use that, you can simply construct just a mint xALGO transaction.

So, what's next?

If you would like to use xALGO in this way, i.e. simply have it on Algorand without the need to bridge it back-and-forth, be sure to leave your feedback at any of the Folks Finance social media accounts. The Folks Finance team is know to take user feedback very seriously. I am sure they would add a direct support option for this case if there was enough interest from users on Algorand.

Hope you learned something new! Until next time.