Frederik Gregaard, the incoming CEO of the Cardano Foundation, shared with Cointelegraph his perspective on fintech's competitive landscape and major technology trends. Discussing competition, Gregaard said that the protocol's biggest opponents do not come from within the blockchain space: “I think the biggest competitor, it's really the largest technology companies today around, the large tech platforms such as Google, Amazon, Tencent, Alibaba, those kind of players”. Gregaard believes that social-media-based big technology providers have morphed from supplying their customers with meaningful tools to essentially owning and manipulating their users. He went so far as to call them “an addictive, mental, …

Popular hardware wallet company Ledger added Algorand's ALGO token to the list of wallet-compatible assets available on its desktop app, Ledger Live, allowing holders to store and stake the asset. “The integration with Ledger Live will provide users with additional opportunities to earn passive income, ensuring the highest level of control and flexibility," Ledger's CEO, Pascal Gauthier, explained Tuesday in a statement provided to Cointelegraph. The addition also means storage compatibility for tokens built on Algorand's blockchain, known as Algorand Standard Assets. Assets built using proof-of-stake technology mean holders can earn passive income by helping to provide consensus for the …

As part of an initiative bringing stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) to other blockchains, USDC is now available on the public Algorand blockchain. This is in addition to its existing availability as an Ethereum-based token. Offering USDC on Algorand gives the asset layer 1 scalability, touting more than 1,000 transactions per second, or TPS, while costing less than a penny in fees (1/20 of one cent to be precise), said a statement provided to Cointelegraph. “This is a defining milestone for frictionless mainstream payments as well as sophisticated financial applications,” Algorand Inc.'s founder, Silvio Micali, said in the statement, adding: “This …

After several years in development, Ethereum 2.0 is now more tantalizingly close than ever before. Despite a shaky start with the Medalla testnet, it seems that development is still on track. Prysmatic Labs developer Raul Jordan indicated in a recent blog post that “2 to 3 months from the Medalla genesis block is still an ideal timeline.” At this point, what are another three months? The idea of an upgrade has been floating around in some form since the platform was first launched in 2015. The time it has taken to get this far in implementing Ethereum 2.0 speaks to …

Digital security exchange Archax and DeFi protocol Algorand have formed a partnership to build a new line of products to bridge the gap between centralized, and decentralized, finance. Archax and Algorand will work together to release “innovative smart financial products” including stablecoins using smart contracts and liquid alternatives — mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that aim to provide investors with diversification. Algorand, which recently upgraded its scalable smart contracts for DeFi and DApp solutions, will build the products and Archax, one of the first exchanges to obtain an operational license from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority, will list them …

The latest upgrade to the Algorand network shows that the project is eyeing the burgeoning DeFi space. In a Cointelegraph interview, Algorand’s head of product Paul Riegle emphasized the three key features of this upgrade: the addition of stateful smart contract functionality to the base layer, “fast catchup” and “rekeying”. The Algorand team believes the new features make it a viable competitor in the DeFi space. He pointed out what makes Algorand’s stateful smart contracts different from its brethren on other platforms is their integration into the base layer, which allows them to run extremely fast: “They do it at …

A surprise Coinbase listing has seen the price of Algorand (ALGO) spike by nearly 30% in less than 24 hours and pushed Algorand’s market cap to a new record high ($274 million at the time of writing). On July 16, Coinbase abruptly announced that ALGO trading had been launched on Coinbase.com and the exchange’s apps. Trade volume for Algorand increased by nearly four times since in response to the listing, comprising the third-strongest day of trade in ALGO’s history. ALGO prices triple in three months ALGO is currently trading above $0.35 for the second time in its history and has …

U.S.-based and regulatory-friendly crypto exchange Coinbase has added Algorand (ALGO) as its latest new cryptocurrency after the outfit added the coin to its trading-based platform in the latter part of 2019. ALGO is now available for trading on Coinbase's main site, Coinbase.com, as well as on the entity's Apple and Android mobile apps, a July 16 statement from Coinbase said. Coinbase's move toward additional assets Coinbase listed ALGO on its trading platform, Coinbase Pro, in August of 2019. "One of the most common requests we hear from customers is to be able to buy and sell more cryptocurrencies on Coinbase," …

Alternative cryptocurrencies, or altcoins, have started to record large gains across the board. Some small-cap coins have seen triple-digit percentage gains in recent weeks. But several larger-cap cryptocurrencies have also been posting serious gains such as VeChain (VET), Stellar (XLM), Cardano (ADA) and Chainlink (LINK). Cryptocurrency market performance in the past 7 days. Source: Coin360 Top ten top performers in the crypto market in the past week In the past week, VET, XLM, ADA, ALGO, LINK, BSV, ATOM, XRP, CRO and ETC outperformed the rest of the market including Bitcoin, which gained just 1.13% during the period. The chart below …

An American blockchain technology startup, Algorand, has joined a major blockchain gaming association, the Blockchain Game Alliance, or BGA. Algorand, known for providing technology to a number of national digital currency projects, is now officially a BGA member. They join more than 60 BGA companies, such as ConsenSys and MakerDAO, according to the BGA website. Announcing the news on July 2, Algorand said that the firm will be contributing to the BGA as a member and supporting sponsor. Bringing online gaming on blockchain By joining the alliance, Algorand wants to bring a number of benefits to the gaming industry. These …

The Algorand Foundation has announced that the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin will be launched on the Algorand (ALGO) blockchain. The integration will allow customers using Circle APIs or Circle Business Accounts to convert funds from their bank account or card network into stable tokens on the Algorand blockchain. USDC currently ranks as the second-largest stablecoin by market cap, and the 19th-biggest crypto asset with a capitalization of nearly $930 million. The coin was developed as a joint venture comprising Circle and major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. USDC is coming to Algorand USDC has purportedly issued more than $2.5 billion to date, …

Proof-of-stake blockchain protocol Algorand and blockchain software firm Blockstack have launched a joint open-source project to support the development of a smart contract language dubbed “Clarity.” Both claim that existing smart contract languages are neither secure nor predictable enough to meet the growing needs of the emerging industry. As of this February, $1 billion in value was locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) markets, where smart contracts are used to innovate financial services such as credit and lending. In their announcement on June 10, Algorand and Blockstack emphasized the need for an alternative smart contract language that would be: “Purpose-built for …