Algorand (www.algorand.com), a scalable, secure and decentralized digital currency and transactions platform, raised a $4M seed financing from Pillar and Union Square Ventures. Algorand is positioned to address the blockchain’s scaling challenges through rapid and efficient user consensus, enabling even the smallest transactions, regardless of transaction volume or number of users.
Where existing systems suffer from the “blockchain trilemma”––a tradeoff between decentralization, scalability and security––Algorand has the potential to solve all three. The project’s open-source protocol has the capacity to scale to billions of users in a safe and secure way. For each block of transactions, Algorand randomly and fairly selects a small, one-time committee of users to achieve consensus. To protect them from attackers, the identities of these users are hidden until the block is confirmed. The size of this group remains constant as the network grows.
Silvio Micali, a Turing award-winning cryptographer and MIT professor of computer science, co-authored the Algorand protocol. Micali is one of the co-inventors of zero-knowledge proofs, and is best known for some of his fundamental early work on public-key cryptosystems, pseudorandom functions, digital signatures, oblivious transfer and secure multiparty computation.
“Just as the strength of the Algorand network comes from the diversity of its participants, the strength of the Algorand community comes from the diversity of its contributors,” said Micali. “We are an open community bringing together end users, developers, and researchers in cryptography, economics, and computer science.”
The project will be an open-source consensus protocol that is both computationally and energy efficient, and does not require solving cryptographic puzzles, keeping transaction costs low.
Transactions will be confirmed within seconds, and transferred value will immediately be available.
Algorand’s unique governance protocol will allow the system to evolve and meet the future needs of the community, whether those changes are technical or monetary, without hard forks.
“Silvio is a world-class cryptographer, and he’s attracted an exceptional core team and advisors,” said Pillar investor, Jamie Goldstein. “Algorand is a sophisticated approach to addressing existing blockchain challenges––scale, settlement times, and cost. The company has the potential to fulfill the promise of a truly decentralized world.”
Algorand will use funds from the financing to continue to grow its team and technology. The company anticipates launching its open source protocol within the year. Algorand is headquartered in Boston, MA and the team includes 10 full-time team members.
About Algorand
Algorand is a scalable, secure and decentralized digital currency and transactions platform. The project’s open source protocol is co-authored by Silvio Micali, a Turing award-winning MIT professor.
Algorand has the potential to solve blockchain scaling challenges through rapid and efficient user consensus, enabling even the smallest transactions, regardless of transaction volume or number of users.
