Monerium to Issue E-Money on the Algorand Blockchain In New Partnership

Licensed e-money issuer Monerium will support the blockchain protocol Algorand in 2020. News of the two firms’ non-exclusive partnership was announced in a press release on Jan. 21. 

The cooperation will see Monerium issuing its programmable e-money on the proof-of-stake Algorand protocol, created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor and Turing Prize award-winner Silvio Micali. 

Regulated e-money on the blockchain

Founded in 2016, ConsenSys-backed Monerium focuses on bridging fiat money and blockchains by issuing programmable digital cash, denominated in U.S. dollars, euros, British pounds and Icelandic krona. 

In June 2019, it became the first company worldwide to receive a license from Icelandic regulators as part of a new European regulatory framework for blockchain-powered e-money services across the European Economic Area.

According to the press release, Monerium’s e-money can be stored and transacted on the blockchain by retail users and businesses online without the need for banking institutions or payments providers. 

In a statement, Monerium co-founder and CEO Sveinn Valfells said that Monerium was prioritizing integration with blockchains that have “mainstream relevance”:

“Algorand incorporates key features for many mainstream use-cases, including stateless smart contracts and scaleable proof-of-stake consensus. The Algorand leadership has taken a pragmatic and deliberate approach in designing a blockchain for mainstream applications while staying close to the ethos of the open source community." 

Algorand’s newly-updated protocol  

As reported, Algorand released an upgrade to its protocol in November 2019 to include more tools for enterprise-scale decentralized applications, or Dapps.

The upgrade also focused on developing new scalable blockchain-native solutions for real-world use cases, such as asset tokenization.

Algorand had released its public testnet to solicit feedback on the protocol in mid-April. The project had previously garnered $66 million in funding, releasing its testnet to a limited group of participants prior to the public rollout.