Algorand

FAQ's

What is Algorand (ALGO)?

Algorand is a Boston-based open-source software company working towards building a borderless economy. They’ve developed a permissionless, Pure Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol with open participation, scalability, security and transaction finality.

When was Algorand launched?

The Algorand mainnet became live in June 2019, and was able to handle almost 1 million transactions per day as of December 2020.

Who are the Founders of Algorand?

Silvio Micali is a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the founder of Algorand. He is a recipient of the Turing Award (in 2012) for his fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of secure two-party computation, electronic cash, cryptocurrencies and blockchain protocols. This makes him one of the foremost creators of crypto in the world.

How to stake Algorand?

While anyone can run a participation node, not all users will have the technical ability to participate in the consensus protocol. For users who are not able to run a participation node, the Algorand blockchain offers an offline mode. When a user declares themselves offline, their account’s stake is not taken into consideration for the sortition process. This allows any user to have a stake in Algorand without requiring them to operate a participation node.

Currently, the system treats all users equally. In the future, the Algorand Foundation may propose an upgrade to increase the rewards given to online users – incentivizing them for their participation in the cryptographic sortition protocol – and decrease the rewards given to offline users.

What are Governance Rewards and what are the requirements to be eligible?

The decentralized, community Governance Rewards model has been designed to highly value and reward the commitment of Governors to the Algorand ecosystem and their participation in voting.

Governors must maintain their committed Algo balance throughout each full 3-month period. In other words, Governors cannot move the amount of Algo committed in the designated wallet for the entire period. In addition, they must participate in all the votes during that period.

The amount of distributed Governance Rewards is decided before the beginning of the period. In period 2, 3 and 4 about 70,500,000 ALGO were distributed to the Governors.

How long do I have to commit ALGO to the Governance Period?

The Governors will have to commit an amount of ALGOs for a minimum of 3 months (length of a governing period). During this phase, the ALGO cannot be withdrawn.