ALGORAND ECOSYSTEM MONTHLY ROUND UP WITH UBONG EPHRAIM — AUGUST 2020

9 min readAug 29, 2020

Hello everyone. I am Ubong Ephraim. A blockchain evangelist and content creator who has been in the blockchain sphere for four years now. I am an Algorand ambassador. This article is the first of many series i’ll be publishing. Algorand monthly roundup with Ubong Ephraim would be a recurring series each month where I'll highlight the latest happenings and events on the Algorand ecosystem during the month.

The Algorand blockchain keeps on evolving with so many amazing updates being churned out regularly. Partnerships are made and utility tools on the blockchain are built as well. It could be easy to miss vital information amidst all these updates and that’s what this monthly series aims to help with. Bringing all these information to everyone in the Algorand ecosystem. Summarized and coupled with links for comprehensive reports and announcements.

PROPS IN-APP TRANSACTIONS MOVING TO ALGORAND

The Props Sidechain (PropsChain) migrated from Hyperledger to the Algorand blockchain. It was a move to leverage on the increased throughput and transparency of the Algorand blockchain. According to Adi Sideman,the CEO of Props PBC: “This volume of transactions and activity, with the level of finality and costs, would not be possible on other public blockchains”. In order to implement this system on Algorand, each Props App uses an ASA (Algorand Standard Asset).
Read more : https://medium.com/@PROPSproject/props-in-apps-transactions-moving-to-algorand-bc61325ef24

ENCODE CLUB PARTNERS WITH ALGORAND TO CREATE 2ND CLUB PRE-ACCELERATOR WITH ALGORAND

Encode club announced that they will be running a ‘Club’ with Algorand, starting Monday 31st August 2020. The ‘Club’ is a 10-week online pre-accelerator taking the best university, hackathon and early-stage projects worldwide and helping them take the leap to becoming fully-fledged startups. The purpose of the club is to to create a programme to help smart developers get to the next stage after completing hackathons to enable them continue building solutions. The benefits of the club include a £4k grant,
weekly support and guidance, access to a private Discord community of other teams working towards the same goal, mentoring from leading entrepreneurs and investors and daily development support from Algorand’s team.
Read more : https://medium.com/encode-club/announcing-the-en-code-algorand-club-b0b4281714a8

BORDERLESS CAPITAL INVESTS IN AND PARTNERS WITH STAKERDAO TO ACCELERATE ACCESS TO DEFI ACOSS ALGORAND ECOSYSTEM

Borderless Capital announced that they have invested in and partnered with StakerDAO to accelerate access to decentralized financial products throughout the Algorand Ecosystem. StakerDAO’s first financial product, Blend (BLND), will be launched on Algorand, with plans for additional DeFi products in coming months. Blend (BLND) tracks a governed basket of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) tokens and offers the easiest way to go long on the best PoS networks. With a single BLND ASA (Algorand Standard Asset) token, qualified individuals can instantly participate in Algorand, Tezos, and Cosmos. BLND provides both price exposure to these blockchain projects, as well as exposure to the staking rewards these networks generate.
More information : https://algorand.foundation/borderless-cap-stakerdao

ALGORAND ANNOUNCES LAUNCH OF STATEFUL SMART CONTRACT FUNCTIONALITY INTEGRATED INTO LAYER-1

Algorand Foundation and Algorand Inc announced the launch of comprehensive smart contract capabilities that will enable the creation of DeFi solutions and dApps that can scale to billions of users, tens of millions of daily transactions, with negligible transaction fees, all while taking advantage of the layer-1 benefits of the Algorand protocol. The key element of the launch was the addition of stateful smart contract functionality integrated into layer-1, joining existing capabilities such as Atomic Transfers, stateless smart contracts and Algorand Standard Assets (ASA1s). Bundling these unique features with trivial transaction costs (.001 Algo) and comprehensive smart contract capability, Algorand is now the platform of choice for developers who wish to bring their vision into the mainstream.
Read more : https://algorand.foundation/algorand-upgrade

FOUNDATION GRANT RECIPIENT AKOIN LAUNCHES ALGORAND INTEGRATION FOR ORE ID AND CHAINJS

AIKON one of the first recipients of the Algorand Foundation Grants Program recently announced the official launch of the Algorand blockchain integration for AIKON’s core service, ORE ID, and AIKON’s open-source developer library, ChainJS. Their flagship product, ORE ID, is a simple user onboarding and blockchain identity management service. With ORE ID, users get a completely seamless blockchain experience that is similar to modern web 2.0 applications. ORE ID is built using AIKON’s ChainJS, a single javascript helper library that abstracts the blockchain interfaces and lets developers build their application in an almost blockchain-agnostic manner. With the integration of ORE ID, existing Dapps can be easily upgraded by migrating them from other blockchains to Algorand, where they can enjoy the scalability, fast finality, and security that Algorand offers. “Providing the seamless blockchain experience facilitated by ORE ID is a significant step in enabling companies to build on Algorand,” said Sean Lee, CEO of the Algorand Foundation. “The Foundation is delighted that AIKON, as one of our first Algo Grant recipients, has been able to deliver this functionality so quickly to the Algorand Ecosystem”.
Read more : https://algorand.foundation/aikon-ore-id

ALGORAND FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES CLOSE OF APPLICATIONS FOR ALGORAND’S ASIA ACCELERATOR PROGRAM

Algorand Asia Accelerator which was launched ealier this year aims to encourage and spur blockchain development in particular synergy with Finance 3.0 and beyond, empowering projects to build, grow and foster financial innovations in the Algorand ecosystem. he programme offers USD$15,000 upfront seed funding for each selected project, with these projects also eligible for up to USD$250,000 in follow-on investment. Applications were open until 16th August, 2020. Applications are now closed for the Accelerator program. 143 applications were received across 39 countries. The applications are now being reviewed and updates would be rolled out soon on Algorand’s social media accounts.

ALGO NOW AVAILABLE ON THE BLOCKCHAIN.COM WALLET

TheAlgo token got listed on the blockchain.com wallet. Blockchain.com. You can now buy, sell, send and receive ALGO on the blockchain.com wallet.

ANNOUNCING AVAILABILITY OF REKEYING: ALGORAND’S UNIQUE KEY MANAGEMENT APPROACH

Algorand announced the availabilty of its new rekeying feature recently. Algorand’s new rekeying feature allows users to change their private spending key without the need to change their public address. Rekeying enables key unique functionalities wherever a digital wallet or account is enabled with Algorand’s blockchain, which unlocks many possibilities for greater security, fast private key changes, low operational overhead for custody providers and much more.

BOUNTYBLOK ARE THE LATEST RECIPIENTS OF ALGORAND FOUNDATION GRANT

After thorough review and selection, Algorand foundation announced that bountyblok hadreceived an Algorand Foundation Grant, to make it easier for applications to acquire new customers and engage them through bountyblok’s incentivization and reward system. “We are delighted to support bountyblok’s grant application,” said Sean Lee, CEO of the Algorand Foundation. “Their innovative gamification approach enables their partners to easily deliver all the benefits of user rewards and, by choosing Algorand as their blockchain platform, they have ensured their ability to grow to many millions of users.
Read more : https://algorand.foundation/bountyblok-grant

RANDLABS LAUNCHES TEAL ALGO ORACLE IN ALGORAND LAYER-1

Rand Labs has recently revealed a novel architecture for an Algorand Oracle that facilitates the swap of two assets fully on-chain.They have successfully evolved the Oracle from an initial prototype into a TEAL-compatible ALGO/USD on-chain Oracle using Coinbase.com as the data source. The revamped Oracle is now in production and running on Algorand’s MainNet. The TEAL ALGO Oracle will inspire and enable a new generation of financial products in the crypto ecosystem. For the first time in a high performance public-permissionless blockchain, the Oracle runs on layer 1 of the protocol.
Read more : https://medium.com/randlabs/teal-algo-oracle-in-algorand-layer-1-30cceba1f125

PARSIQ + ALGORAND

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From developers and builders to traders and end users — all Algorand stakeholders will find the solution easily accessible.

ALGORAND AND ARCHAX PARTNER FOR NEW WAVE OF SOPHISTICATED FINANACIAL PRODUCTS

Archax announced that it has partnered with leading blockchain provider Algorand to work on new innovative smart financial products that will trade on its FCA regulated exchange. Archax is looking to create a range of bespoke regulated financial products to sit alongside its pipeline of more regular digital security issuances, such as equity, fund and debt instruments.
Graham Rodford, CEO of Archax, comments: “We are a blockchain agnostic marketplace, but keen to work with leading providers to deliver the next wave of ground-breaking regulated financial products. Algorand fits that bill perfectly, and we are now working with them on a number of challenger products — such as smart stablecoins and liquid alternative instruments, as well as those which will revolutionise the lending/borrowing/staking space.”

“With their ability to leverage technology that is purpose-built for DeFi, we believe that Archax will be one of the leading digital asset venues in the world”, said W. Sean Ford, COO of Algorand. “By bringing together Algorand’s proven performance, along with Archax’s unique regulated status and institutional experience, we are looking forward to delivering powerful products that will revolutionise the way global financial markets traditionally operate in a new, frictionless economy.”
Read more : https://www.algorand.com/resources/news/archax-selects-algorand

ALGOSIGNER, THE FIRST ALGORAND WALLET EXTENSION IS NOW AVAILABLE

PureStake, a leader in secure and reliable blockchain infrastructure, announced the availability of AlgoSigner in the Chrome Web Store. As an open-source browser plug-in, AlgoSigner provides a secure way for holders of the Algo token to interact with dApps without granting them control of their keys. As a browser extension, AlgoSigner opens the door for developers to build DeFi applications on Algorand by providing a secure way to add transaction capabilities. This enables developers to initiate transactions and accept Algos seamlessly, without jeopardizing the security of their users’ secrets.
The development of AlgoSigner was funded by the Algorand Foundation in April 2020 as part of the Grants Program. For end users, AlgoSigner also makes it easy to use Algorand-based applications on the web. Simply create or import your Algo account, visit a compatible dApp, and approve or deny transactions — all from within your browser.
Read more : https://algorand.foundation/purestake-algosigner

ALGORAND ECOSYSTEM MONTHLY ROUND UP WITH UBONG EPHRAIM — AUGUST 2020

Written by Ubong Ephraim

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