Uncovering a Trove of Algorand Research and Tools

The original paper, Algorand: Scaling Byzantine Agreements for Cryptocurrencies, was published in 2017. Since then, the Algorand protocol has undergone several changes. While the paper laid out the foundational ideas, it did not provide detailed implementation guidelines. Notably, it omits any mention of TEAL and AVM.

Funded by the Algorand Foundation, the MEGA-ACE (Multi-disciplinary Educational Global Alliance for Algorand Centre of Excellence) program was a collaboration involving 17 institutions across six continents, aimed at creating a multi-disciplinary powerhouse for blockchain research and education. Initiated with considerable ambition in late 2022, the program experienced a strategic pause after one year, a reflection on the dynamic nature of such innovative endeavors rather than a shortfall of its three-year projection. This pause allows for a reassessment of ongoing projects, many of which were in progress, signaling an opportunity to enhance documentation and project clarity. The project, a collaborative effort led by Purdue University, underscores the commitment to advancing blockchain technology and education.

At CoinFabrik we put an elite team to work on this project. Including several of our PhDs, security auditors, and software engineers. These are the main items we worked on:

1. Algorand Protocol Simulator: A tool for simulating the behavior of the Algorand protocol
2. Algorand-Pythealizer: a proof of concept of a more pythonic way to write TEAL scripts in Python
3. First MEGA-ACE Algorand Hackathon.
4. CTF (Capture the Flag). An engaging and competitive worldwide event .
5. https://github.com/CoinFabrik/algorand-tealift: a functional prototype of a static analyzer for TEAL. It is available online to use as Tealift.
6. Fantastic devtools and how to build them
7. Last, but not least, the preprint describing the current Algorand protocol implementation in detail (in LaTex and PDF): https://github.com/CoinFabrik/algorand-protocol-paper

Enjoy!