Algorand Governance Program is a participation program.

I’ve been a part of Algorand since 2020. I’ve invested at highs, lows, and for the most part haven’t stopped buying it. I genuinely think it has some of the best tech in the market and it’s incredibly hard for me to bet against M.I.T.’s brainchild. For the nitpickers, Silvio Micali was mentioned in BTC whitepaper and his work that earned him the Turing Award is vast since he started in the 1980s at MIT and remains there today. It’s a professor from Mit’s brainchild. I say all of this to try to draw differences from the start between Algorand the blockchain developer and Algorand the foundation that spurs interest and economic development. They’re two different entities and the foundation does not keep the chain running so to speak. Algorand Co. is the brains behind the well oiled machine, more aptly Silvio Micali.

Semantics and résumés aside the foundation concerns me. Staci Warden is not uneducated nor is she bad at her work. She’s landed partnerships we never would’ve had before and though they haven’t blossomed through the bear market like many others, the work will continue to develop until it just becomes a part of everyone’s lives. My problem is the governance and by proxy, the foundation which Staci Warden heads. Algo now has no rewards through Coinbase and it has not had a genuinely transparent quarter of governance or open door to their decision making behind their programs. There are conversations that don’t seem to involve the public like their developments or methodology, so how could we vote to spur them properly?

We’ve had governance every quarter for quite some time now. The first question was to increase rewards at the risk of slashing your locked amount for governance if you withdrew during the period. The community voted against the riskier but more potentially profitable measure and we moved on. Since then it has been defi funding after defi funding and it’s starting to feel like they’re taking the losses of their defi giants and socializing them amongst us through governance. When they issue a governance question it’s “Do we increase defi funding by 5m Algo or 15m Algo per quarter from the governance reward pool?”

This is participation, not governance. The people running the project can not be that dull. In my opinion this is the only thing holding Algorand back from being in the top 10 or 5. Before my fellow Algo investors get up in arms, I understand they’re working to change governance through their new proposal system but it feels slow and it feels like something not geared toward grassroots investors but instead the defi competitors. This new Algo X Governor program is confusing at best and I hope to understand more from your comments.

I understand Defi will help this chain, I understand that Algorand is a 10 year build, but I want to actually choose here. If they’re smart they’ll make a better proposal this next quarter and hopefully make adjustments here. I’m also aware that even if we had genuine questions, we could get completely outvoted by whales since the market cap is low enough for opportunity to manipulate here, but hopefully with the low institutional interest Algorand has experienced we can reasonably say it’s not the worst imbalance of whales in the crypto world.

Accelerated vesting is over, partnerships are here and big ones at that, and Algorand continues to have 0 down time and continuously top of the line tech. This is the only thing standing in its way of being a truly decentralized currency and transaction network and I hope I can read comments informing me of what I don’t know. I want to see this crypto flourish mainly because it’s partnered with universities all over the country. If you wanted a good government competitor, you’d wanna find the smartest people. Lawyers, devs, and values that supersede government whim working together. Hopefully the foundation doesn’t bring the merit of Algorand Co. and their work down and I look forward to learning what y’all have experienced as well.

TL;DR: Algorand’s foundation needs to establish actual governance, or they won’t be able to fully provide what the market needs. This will be wasting the tech that makes them such a great option for blockchain use and limiting investor involvement which has historically been a bad move especially in crypto from my observations. Alternative example: imagine if publicly traded companies didn’t have to produce filings. Forget unprofessional, that’s just unnerving.