Introducing Algorand’s 50M dollar Developer Grant program

Crypto News

Algorand is a one-of-its-kind open-source, permissionless, and pure proof-of-stake blockchain that doesn’t fork and is ideal for the creation of next-gen financial products. It aims to build a borderless, frictionless economy on public, decentralized blockchain technology. To that effect, the Algorand Foundation announced the launch of a 250 million ALGO (approx $50 million USD) Grants Program to encourage developer activity on its blockchain.

Fangfang Chen, Head of Operations at the Algorand Foundation, said about the Grants Program:

“We are thrilled to announce the 250M ALGO Grants Program, which is designed to support innovation that helps to grow the Algorand ecosystem. We believe that a public, permissionless, pure proof-of-stake blockchain with an open-source approach is fundamental to delivering on the vision of a borderless economy. As part of its vision of enabling a broad and active blockchain development community, the Algorand Foundation is committed to supporting that community as they explore the opportunities for innovation that exist within the Algorand blockchain ecosystem.”

The Grant Categories

The grant will be allocated to deserving developers and projects across the following four major categories:

Research Proposals: Innovative research ideas that could have a major impact on the long-term success of Algorand or the blockchain space as a whole.
Development Tools and Infrastructure: Tools and infrastructure components that will make the Algorand blockchain easily accessible to developers and system builders.
Applications and Use Cases: Project and applications that target a wide variety of real-world use cases and demonstrate high potential for mainstream adoption.
Education and Community: Educational efforts that educated the general public on open-source, decentralized technologies, and their impact on business and society.

Award Sizes

The Algorand Foundation clarified that the award program isn’t intended to fund the entirety of an application’s building costs. The size of the award given to a project is directly related to its complexity, importance, and need in the market. The Foundation also specified the following:

They would give preference to open-source projects and licensing may be used in adjudicating awards.
Projects aren’t limited to just submitting one application to the grant program.
Every new submission will be reviewed in isolation and it’ll not be affected by prior submissions.

The award sizes will be divided into the following categories:

Extra small: 5k-20k ALGO.
Small: 20k-50k ALGO.
Medium: 50k-100k ALGO.
Large: 100k-250k ALGO ← This is the maximum award a project will receive from the grant program.

Initial recipients of the grant

Three projects have already won awards from the grant program:

#1 Bloq

A multi-blockchain infrastructure that delivers Algorand nodes and APIs alongside other major networks. After receiving the grant, Bloq tweeted:

“Bloq is proud to be one of the first three recipients of the @AlgoFoundation ’s 250 ALGO Grants Program, dedicated to “[supporting] innovation that helps to grow the @Algorand ecosystem.” #blockchain #infrastructure”

#2 PureStake AlgoSigner

An open-source browser plug-in that allows developers to augment their applications with Algorand transaction capabilities without compromising the users’ private keys.

an open-source browser plug-in that enables developers to add Algorand transaction capabilities into their applications while allowing users to keep control of their keys.

Derek Yoo, CEO at PureStake, said:

“Easy and pragmatic developer tools are critical to further expanding the accessibility of the Algorand network. We are pleased to have been selected by the Algorand Foundation for a grant that lets us break down barriers between token holders, application developers, and the blockchain network itself.”

#3 Reach

The Reach platform helps inexperienced developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) by removing the complexities of the blockchain. By abstracting away the complications and formally verifying the outputs of the dApp – Reach lets the developers know if their application is any good or not.

Chris Swenor, Founder of Reach, said about the grant program:

“The grant program from the Algorand Foundation is one of the most focused programs out there, and we believe it will be instrumental in accelerating the adoption of Algorand’s platform. We are excited to participate and move forward with our vision for making DApp development seamless.”

Conclusion

Along with the categories mentioned above, the other criteria that Algorand will be taking into account during the selection process are:

Quality of the submission.
Opportunity for growth.
Technical or academic strength of the proposal.
Commitment of the team submitting the project.

Currently, the Algorand Foundation will be conducting the initial evaluation of the projects; however, in the future, they plan on introducing an open grant program. In the open grant system, the community will get to decide on which projects should receive grants via voting.