Algorand is a project that is building an upgraded version of the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol . Intended to be a blockchain payments platform that is technically more sound, the project was founded in 2017 by Silvio Micali, an MIT professor and cryptographer. The token’s crowdsale in 2019 raised $60 million, selling out in 4 hours. 

Boldly calling itself “the future Proof of Stake Blockchain”, Algorand is working on solving three problems plaguing the cryptocurrency market: decentralization, scale and security. The aforementioned PoS protocol is at the heart of the team’s approach, which the team says finalizes blocks in seconds and offers transaction performance on the same level as large scale payment networks.

On the technological front, the main features of the Algorand platform are its cryptographic sortition, its network level security features and all of the benefits that come from its transaction. The cryptographic sortition chooses a different set of users for every round of block selection and to protect the network. Users are randomly selected for participation in the consensus protocol. Furthermore, when a block is proposed, and the block is certified if a majority users decide in favor of the proposal. 

The team also says that “an adversary is never able to convince two honest users to accept two different blocks for the same round.”  

Algorand’s consensus algorithm is still being developed and improved, and the team has several other features lined up for 2019 and going into 2020. Algorand’s Vault is a blockchain compression technology that lets users join the network without downloading a large amount of data. Another interesting feature is Pixel, a digital signature scheme that reduces space requirements for PoS systems. Atomic swaps and self-validating transactions are also on the agenda.