Algorand disrupts Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana with new announcements
Algorand, the foundation behind the layer-1 blockchain, has drawn mixed reactions to a new announcement, a big swipe at rival networks Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana – suggesting they are not suitable for payments.
On May 23rd, the Algorand Foundation released a new announcement on YouTube titled “When Blockchain Meets the Real World, Only One Offers.”
The ad shows a supermarket checkout with shoppers trying to pay with three different crypto assets: Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL).
During the ad, the person trying to pay with Bitcoin is told by the cashier that the transaction will take 27 minutes to wait.
The Ethereum payer was told the transaction would cost $112, and the consumer who chose Solana was unable to pay because the transaction kept failing.
The camera moves customers to the next checkout queue in real-time using Algorand's “Quick End Step. Low fees. Designed for the pace of life.
Political consultant and entrepreneur Anthony Scaramucci also appears in a final cameo, asking how to join the Algorand checkpoint. Some X analysts later pointed out the hypocrisy after Scaramucci posted that the “$SOL ETF” would continue on X – just hours after the announcement.
The ad caused quite a stir on X with over 700,000 views at the time of writing, with one commenter saying, “Algorand runs 21 TPS, can't support a major browser but throws $100k+ on ads. . Not like that, folks.”
The user Algorand Foundation announced in January that it was shutting down the block explorer AlgoExplorer.
“This type of marketing doesn't make sense to me,” said Zach Raines, Community Relations for Chainlink.
“Non-crypto people go away with a negative feeling (“yes crypto goes wrong”), not even realizing it's an ad *for* crypto.
Meanwhile, businessman ‘Fiscantes' told his 90,000 followers on X: “At this early stage of the adoption cycle, negative ad campaigns about your competitors are very low activity.”
“It shows a lack of zero-sum thinking and original ideas,” he said, before adding, “Any high TPS ghostchain can claim what Algorithm says, until it hits the fan and people actually start using it.”
Not all responses were critical, however. KernelEdge founder Hilmar Ingemundarsson said Team Algorand was a “place” in their market, while XRP Cafe founder “Vet” said the ad was “really funny” even though the ad hit hard on other chains.
Related: Algorand shaves block times by 20% after dynamic Lambda optimization.
According to Defillama, the total value locked in the Algorand network is only 96 million dollars. This part of TVL on Ethereum is $65 billion and Solana is $4.8 billion.
Algorand's native token, ALGO, fell 2% on the day to $0.183 and is down 95% from its 2019 all-time high, CoinGecko reports.
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