We have just announced a seed financing round for our project, Moonbeam: $1.4 million from many of the most prominent venture capital firms in the blockchain industry. It’s a big milestone for us, but I’d like to take a moment to pause and explain how this fits into our overall vision for the project. We […]
User experience (UX) in crypto products is generally poor for a simple reason: there simply isn’t that much investment going into it. Investment goes mostly into cryptography and technical research and backend engineering. Even front ends for blockchain based applications are often “just enough to get the job done.” I start with this observation because […]
Why isn’t broader crypto mass adoption happening? At some point, everyone working in the crypto space has asked themselves why mass adoption hasn’t happened. Some common assumptions for why this is the case are that the technology is not mature enough, that it isn’t scalable enough, and that the dev tools are so much worse […]
I heard Malcolm Gladwell tell a story about spaghetti sauce in a TED talk back in 2004 and it’s one of those stories that has stuck with me and that I still think about from time to time. The story has become somewhat well known to marketeers who are drawn to its conclusions about horizontal […]
The following is a very simple tutorial that uses the Python SDK and PureStake API service to interact with the Algorand network. Support for the PureStake API service was added to the Algorand Python SDK last year. In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a simple Python program that sends an Algorand […]
We announced Moonbeam today, a smart contract platform that provides a scalable and accessible alternative to other developer platform options. Moonbeam aims to provide developers with the ability to port existing Ethereum DApps or to create new DApps using familiar Ethereum development tools. This will substantially decrease the barrier to entry for successful Ethereum DApps […]
Blockchain scalability is one of the most frequently cited reasons that blockchain adoption isn’t happening faster. The truth is, most blockchain networks are slow when compared to traditional centralized technologies and networks like AWS or the Visa network. Ethereum, for example, can process transactions in the range of 15 transactions per second — and Bitcoin […]
It’s been a few months since we launched our Algorand API as a Service. In that time, we have gotten a lot of great feedback on what is working well and what still needs more work. One thing we have heard and observed ourselves is that certain operations time out and don’t return any data. […]
Polkadot is one of the most highly-anticipated next-generation, developer-focused blockchains. This comparison with Ethereum, the most widely adopted developer-oriented chain, is meant to help newcomers to the networks understand the differences between the two, and may help developers choose which one to build on. At a high level, the two projects are only partially overlapping. […]
It has been 11 days since we joined the active validator set for Kusama, and I wanted to share some initial thoughts on the experience in case this is helpful to other validators, nominators, or other participants thinking about engaging with Kusama or Polkadot. The first impression to convey is that interest in Kusama and […]