The organisation’s creator, MIT professor and Turing Award winner Silvio Micali, tells us more
Elly Yates-Roberts |
This article was originally published in the Autumn 2019 issue of The Record. Subscribe for FREE here to get the next issues delivered directly to your inbox.
Why is it important to support a decentralised economy?
In centralised economies, financial opportunity for most people is inhibited by a lack of transparency, accountability and access. A functioning, decentralised economy breaks down these barriers and offers everyone an opportunity to participate and prosper.
Blockchain offers the ideal foundation upon which to build this borderless economy, but only if the blockchain itself is truly decentralised, secure and scalable. At Algorand, the core mission of our protocol is to eliminate the technical barriers that have made it impossible for blockchain to fulfil these economic promises.
How does Algorand help businesses to compete?
As the first public, permissionless pure proof-of-stake protocol, Algorand redefines what it means for investors, businesses and developers to participate, collaborate, transact and build opportunity in a transparent and borderless world.
Within the Algorand platform, new blocks are generated through a unique byzantine agreement protocol, which offers the speed, security and scalability to support business transactions. Its performance metrics to date rival some of the world’s largest global payment networks.
In addition, Algorand will provide a rich set of templates to enable users to build the applications they need to transact with each other in a simple, efficient and secure way. Users will be able to adopt the templates as they are, or easily modify them while maintaining their performance and security
What are your biggest challenges and achievements so far?
Our first challenge was launching technology that creates the most opportunity for a market that is ready to realise the potential of blockchain. Algorand’s foundational technology has been built on completely new principles, thanks to the dedication and ingenuity of our team.
Our next challenge is continuing to innovate on the platform, which includes smart contracts and beyond. A fresh approach is needed because at present smart contracts are very slow, expensive and error-prone, resulting in potentially massive loss of value.
Algorand is a common platform on which everyone is welcome to build, and we are proud to see the thriving community that has sprung up around it. Many talented developers and entrepreneurs are building compelling solutions for industries such as real estate, entertainment, enterprise computing and telecommunications.
How will blockchain for businesses evolve?
It is exciting to see the creativity happening now that technical barriers have been broken down. Much of the success depends on engaging with a platform that can deliver on the promise to be relevant to businesses, developers and users. I encourage businesses to act and build now rather than risk falling behind. Given the incredible work already occurring, I expect we are on the verge of something even bigger.