Coin columns · Mainnet Province
Algorand (ALGO): Pure Proof of Stake from a Turing Award Winner
Randomly drawn committees, instant finality, a 2019 mainnet
Algorand is a blockchain designed by MIT professor and Turing Award winner Silvio Micali; its mainnet opened in June 2019. Its hallmark is ‘pure proof of stake’, in which committees drawn at random from coin holders confirm each block.
1. Who built it
Silvio Micali won the 2012 Turing Award for foundational work in modern cryptography, including zero-knowledge proofs (proving a fact without revealing the details). The company he founded in 2017 developed Algorand, whose native coin ALGO arrived with the mainnet in June 2019. The Singapore-based Algorand Foundation supports the ecosystem.
ALGO’s maximum supply is fixed at 10 billion. It pays fees, covers account minimum balances and is the stake holders use to take part in block production. On the Crypto Nation map, ALGO is the city-hall tower of the Algorand neighbourhood in the Mainnet Province, because it is the chain’s own coin.
2. How pure proof of stake works
For every block, Algorand randomly picks a committee in proportion to ALGO holdings. Each participant runs a secret lottery on their own computer with a verifiable random function (VRF) and reveals a vote, with proof, only if selected, so attackers cannot easily know whom to target. Holders can take part without locking their coins away.
Once agreement is reached a block is final, so the chain does not fork, and blocks arrive roughly every three seconds. Apps are smart contracts on the Algorand Virtual Machine (AVM) and can be written in Python or TypeScript. The chain also offers a token standard (ASA), atomic transfers that settle several transactions together, and state proofs signed with Falcon, a scheme designed to resist quantum computers.
3. Uses and milestones
Algorand targets payments, token issuance, real-world-asset tokenization and digital identity. In 2022 it became FIFA’s official blockchain sponsor, appearing at the Qatar World Cup, and apps such as the Pera wallet, the Tinyman exchange and the lender Folks Finance make up its ecosystem.
Early rewards were mostly handed out by the foundation, but from early 2025 the protocol began paying people who run their own nodes (computers that store and check the ledger) and take part in block production. Governance programs such as xGov let the community decide how some ecosystem funds are spent.
4. Things to know
Algorand’s technology is well regarded, but its apps and users are few compared with chains such as Ethereum and Solana, so ‘great tech, little use’ is a common critique. The foundation and the development company play large roles in nodes and funding, and views differ on how decentralized its decisions are.
In 2022 it emerged that the foundation had about $35 million with the collapsed crypto lender Hodlnaut, and in 2023 the third-party wallet MyAlgo was hacked, causing user losses (not a flaw in the Algorand chain). The US SEC named ALGO as a security in its 2023 lawsuit against Binance, but that suit was dropped in 2025.
Written from information public up to October 2026. It does not recommend or rate any coin and is not investment advice. If something is wrong, please tell us through the contact page.