Algorand: Wallet Upgrade Features & New Capabilities, Update On Period 2 of 200M ALGO Staking Rewards Program, Algorand Became An Official Chain for USDC, Attestiv Inc. Receives Investment from Borderless Capital
Biweekly update 29th August — 12th September
Hello, and welcome to our regular biweekly update on Algorand! Over the past two weeks, The Foundation, operational entities, and grantees have been working hard, so, as always, we have a lot to share! Let’s have a quick overview!
Firstly, in the recent wallet update, Algorand has developed features that provide a better experience with managing a wallet account, by allowing users to see all of their notifications in the new Notification Center tab; increasing security by limiting the number of PIN entry attempts on the lock screen; advanced sorting, filtering, and exporting each asset’s transaction history to CSV. What’s more, Algorand’s Wallet is now enabled with Rekeying and offers the crypto version of changing passwords, giving users more control and flexibility. Two additional workflows are to be provided, allowing users to either add a Ledger Device to an existing Algorand account or to swap Ledger Devices.
Furthermore, Shiva Prasad has received a development award for Algodesk, an open-source and developer-friendly web-based tool to build decentralized apps and smart contracts on the Algorand network. The development award covers an asset management portal and a Web IDE for TEAL smart contracts.
Another essential update of the recent period — the Algorand Foundation’s 200M Algo Staking Rewards program has completed Period 2, and the staking rewards associated with this period have been distributed on September 2nd, 2020. This time, there were 716 Qualified Wallets, and 48.7M Algo of Period 2 Staking Rewards distributed.
A lot of updates occurred on the public side of Algorand. Centre announced that Algorand is now an official blockchain for USD Coin (USDC). The newly released mainnet implementation of USDC for Algorand is available and becomes the second major blockchain after Ethererum with native support for USDC. The Algorand blockchain brings significant innovations to the market, specifically around transaction scale and speed, helping to expand the use cases for USDC across a broad range of payments and financial applications.
Apart from that, the Marshall Islands and the SOV Development Foundation are ushering in a groundbreaking development in decentralized finance that is transforming the finance industry and now one of the fastest-growing sectors in crypto. Their Sovereign Subscription Rights (SSR) offering will be introduced on the Algorand blockchain later this year. The tokenized SSR offering also marks a major first for a sovereign nation, enabling participants to secure rights to the first cryptocurrency issued by a sovereign nation as legal tender.
Besides, Borderless Capital, a venture capital fund that invests in category-leading businesses leveraging Algorand technology, has announced its investment in Attestiv Inc. This funding represents a commitment to blockchain technology to provide security within digital transformation initiatives across insurance and various industries with Attestiv’s digital media validation platform. By the way, Algorand was listed on Indodax and added to the SwipeWallet App & Card.
Check the article below to learn more and stay tuned!
Development
Check out the latest developer resources at developer.algorand.org
AlgoSigner is a Chrome extension that lets devs add transaction capabilities into dApps:
- Request connectivity to a user’s wallet
- Send transactions to users for approval
- Process & transmit signed transactions to Algorand
If you’re developing Algorand applications and plan to integrate with AlgoSigner, the (recently spruced-up) sample dApp is going to be your new best friend.
Since the Algorand Foundation launched its Development Awards Program last year, many developers around the world have been eager to participate. After thorough review and selection, they are delighted to announce that Shiva Prasad has received a development award for Algodesk. Algodesk is an open-source and developer-friendly web-based tool to build decentralized apps and smart contracts on the Algorand network. The development award covers an asset management portal and a Web IDE for TEAL smart contracts.
Key features of the Asset Management Portal include asset creation, modification, destroying an asset, freezing assets for an account, a list view of assets associated with an account and a network picker to choose testnet/mainet to launch an asset.
Algorand’s Wallet is the official interface that lets users interact with the Algorand blockchain, without needing special blockchain developer tools or knowledge of advanced feature sets. This wallet operates on both iOS and Android platforms and allows people to securely manage Algorand Accounts and transact with Algos and Algorand Standard Assets (ASAs). In this release, Algorand has developed features that allow for a better experience with managing a wallet account, by:
- Allowing users to see all of their notifications (old & new) in the new Notification Center tab
- Increasing security by limiting the number of PIN entry attempts on the lock screen
- Providing advanced sorting, filtering, and exporting each asset’s transaction history to CSV
Algorand’s Wallet is now enabled with Rekeying and offers the crypto version of changing passwords easily giving more control and flexibility to users.
With Rekeying being enabled on Algorand’s wallet, 2 additional workflows are now provided enabling users to:
- Add a Ledger Device to an existing Algorand account — for the ability to take an existing account that is backed by a locally-stored passphrase and change it so that it is backed by a Ledger Nano X device. In this scenario, all signing power is transferred over to that Ledger device, and the old passphrase can be deprecated/discarded.
- Swap Ledger Devices — to have the ability to take an account that is backed by a Nano X device and swap to a new Ledger device. Similar to the previous scenario, the old Ledger device will not be able to sign transactions for this account and the new Ledger device will now back that account. Users can now use their ledger devices to sign transactions for multiple accounts.
Dive deeper into Algorand’s on-chain activity to gain insights into stakeholder behaviors, overall balances, staking patterns & the growth of Dapps — all in real time!
Algorand’s smart contracts (ASC1s) provide a trusted, seamless solution that is not only high performing by being faster, scalable, and cost-effective, but also functionally advanced to enable sophisticated application. Watch a video to learn more.
Social encounters
It could be easy to miss vital information amidst all these updates and that’s what this monthly series aims to help with. Find summarized info coupled with links for comprehensive reports and announcements.
Upcoming events
- 17–19th September — GBBC’s Blockchain Central UNGA with the participation of Algorand
Finance
The Algorand Foundation 200M Algo Staking Rewards program has completed Period 2 and the staking rewards associated with this period have now been distributed on September 2nd, 2020. After accounting for disqualified participants, the remaining qualified participants will have received 0.37 Algo for every Algo staked (put simply, 37 ALGO per 100 ALGO staked). This is a staking reward of 37% in Period 2. Qualified participants remaining in the plan until the end of Period 4 are now projected to receive a minimum of 1450 Algo per 1000 Algo staked (or a staking reward of 145%).
Qualified participants, who have completed KYC, have received Algos into their wallets directly.
Period 2 (at September 1st 2020) Overview:
1. Qualified Wallets as of September 1st 2020: 716
2. Total Number of Algos that were staked in these wallets: 134.9M
3. Period 2 Staking Rewards: 50M Algo
4. Period 2 Staking Rewards distributed (less escrow): 48.7M Algo
5. Period 1 Staking Rewards released from escrow on Sep-2, 2020: 147k Algo
In the blogpost, you can also find a List of Qualified Wallets (at September 1st 2020).
Roadmap
By combining cutting-edge research and innovation with an ecosystem that enables ease and speed of development, the Algorand Foundation strives to anticipate and fulfill future technology needs.
The Algorand Foundation has contracted with Algorand, Inc. to begin development on several advancements to the foundational Algorand public blockchain.
VAULT™
Vault is a blockchain compression technology that allows new users to immediately join and participate in the Algorand network without a burdensome download.
View Whitepaper: Vault: Fast Bootstrapping for the Algorand Cryptocurrency
Algorand’s Forthcoming Technology, by Silvio Micali
PIXEL
Pixel is a new digital signature scheme built for Proof of Stake systems that reduce space requirements through committee member signature aggregation while maintaining forward-security through key rotation.
Pixel-signatures: Efficient and Secure Digital Signatures for Proof-of-Stake Blockchains
Algorand’s Forthcoming Technology, by Silvio Micali
SELF-VALIDATING TRANSACTIONS
Self-validating transactions are an advance that allows separation of consensus and storage to enhance the efficiency and the logical structure of the Algorand blockchain.
Algorand’s Forthcoming Technology, by Silvio Micali
ATOMIC² SWAPS
Atomic² swaps leverage Algorand’s instant transaction finality and implement same-chain swaps of assets, without any type of time- or hash-locks, in a single transaction.
Algorand’s Forthcoming Technology, by Silvio Micali
POST-AND-SALE TRADES
An exchange of assets usually requires interactivity: prior to delivering the asset, a seller must find a buyer and negotiate terms. Post-and-sale trade technology will allow any seller to post assets for sale, at a given price. Any buyer can browse these offers, pay the price and receive the asset immediately without having to interact at all with the seller or any third party.
Algorand’s Forthcoming Technology, by Silvio Micali
SMART² CONTRACTS
Smart contracts permit trusted transactions and agreements to be carried between parties around the world without the need of a trusted third party, but they can be slow and expensive.
Smart² contracts™ leverage Algorand’s consensus mechanism to offer faster and cheaper forms of smart contracts.
Partnerships and team members
Centre announced that Algorand is now an official blockchain for USD Coin (USDC). The newly released mainnet implementation of USDC for Algorand is available, and becomes the second major blockchain after Ethererum with native support for USDC. The Algorand blockchain brings significant innovations to the market, specifically around transaction scale and speed, helping to expand the use cases for USDC across a broad range of payments and financial applications.
Also read an article by Decrypt “Amid Stablecoin Boom, Coinbase’s USDC Expands to Algorand”.
The SOV Development Foundation, a Marshall Islands foundation overseeing the development, distribution and implementation of the Sovereign (SOV) blockchain, announced its board of economic and technical advisors as the final phase in preparation for the first public auction of rights to the SOV, a blockchain-based cryptocurrency and the official legal tender of the Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands and the SOV Development Foundation are ushering in a groundbreaking development in decentralized finance (DeFi), which is transforming the finance industry and now one of the fastest growing sectors in crypto. The completion of the board marks the final phase before the launch of the public auction in the form of a Sovereign Subscription Rights (SSR) offering, which will be offered on the Algorand blockchain later this year. The tokenized SSR offering also marks a major first for a sovereign nation, enabling participants to secure rights to the first cryptocurrency issued by a sovereign nation as legal tender. Additionally, SOV is the first sovereign currency issued solely in digital format (without any corresponding paper or metal currency), as well as the first digital money officially recognized as a currency that does not rely on a central bank but instead Milton Friedman’s k-percent rule enforced via blockchain-based.
JellySwap has received an Algorand Foundation Grant, to make it easier for Algo token holders to quickly and seamlessly exchange their tokens for the tokens of other blockchains. JellySwap is a cross-chain atomic swaps protocol that supports different blockchains. The main goal is to allow everyone to seamlessly swap the underlying assets of multiple heterogeneous blockchain networks and to provide liquidity in a permissionless, borderless, secure, and non-custodial manner.
Borderless Capital, a venture capital fund that invests in category-leading businesses leveraging Algorand technology has announced its investment in Attestiv Inc. This funding represents a commitment to blockchain technology to provide security within digital transformation initiatives across insurance and a variety of industries with Attestiv’s digital media validation platform. Attestiv helps industries such as insurance accelerate digital transformation, without the increasing threat of fraud from deepfakes and media alterations. Using the Algorand blockchain as a system of record for fingerprinting media at the point of capture or after AI-based forensic analysis, Attestiv serves as a foundational platform for any organization reliant on digital photos, videos and documents. Furthermore, Attestiv fills a growing need for self-service and remote operations.
1World Online is a blockchain-powered engagement & monetization platform for publishers, brands and users. 1World and its affiliates will develop a mutually beneficial relationship with the Algorand ecosystem by integrating Algorand as an infrastructure layer. 1World Online and Algorand will work together to proactively collaborate in co-marketing activities and the launching of products in the Algorand ecosystem. 1World will also collaborate with Borderless Capital’s portfolio companies, Algorand’s partners, the Algorand Foundation, and other entities in the Algorand ecosystem. The pilot is scheduled for Q4 2020 and full deployment expected in 2021. 1World Online and its affiliates will be launching next-generation tokens that can easily be supported through Algorand’s existing wallet apps, exchanges and OTC desks. By increasing the availability and liquidity of its tokens, the company hopes to grow and expand participation throughout Algorand’s growing token economy.
Other
Social media metrics
See also:
