Algorand is a smart-contract platform that was founded by Silvio Micali. It was launched in June 2019 aiming to give everyone the opportunity to benefit from a fair and truly borderless economy that combines security, scalability, and decentralization.

Algorand smart contracts are basic code lines that are stored in a blockchain and run automatically when certain conditions are met, allowing developers to create dApps that are highly scalable, secure, and low-cost to run. They are divided into two main categories, “Stateful” and “Stateless” each of which determines when and how the logic of the program is evaluated. Furthermore, the platform performs smart contracts in a high-level programming language that is compiled to bytecode for execution by the Algorand Virtual Machine (AVM).

The Algorand ecosystem is secured using the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocol that is built on the Byzantine agreement. The ecosystem can achieve consensus without a central authority, using a mechanism that prevents malicious behavior from users being randomly and secretly selected to propose blocks and vote on block proposals. The PoS approach corresponds to the security of the whole economy with the honesty of the majority.

ALGO is the currency of the Algorand Protocol and serves as the medium of exchange and store of value. The token’s max supply is capped at 10 billion Algo.