Introduction
The fifth period of the Algorand Governance is about to start and there are some changes being introduced in this phase. The registration will close on October 20th and the rewards will be paid once the period ends on December 31st.
As in `previous` governances, the `payout` of the rewards should be on the first week of January and depending on the wallet you use, you may also receive an NFT.
The page where you can connect your wallet is included below: Algorand Governance Period 5 Nonetheless, before continuing, it may be relevant to know more about how it works.
Process
As described some months ago, in the Governance Period you can vote and participate in cool initiatives that are proposed by the Algorand Foundation. By voting on the different proposals, you get rewarded. It’s important to note that during the 3-month period, the amount of ALGO tokens you commit must be untouched. Reducing the balance means losing the access to the reward. In addition to holding, it is key that you vote for your preferred option. For example, one user committing 20,000 ALGO and selling 100 ALGO on the last day will not get anything. Instead another user committing 1,000 ALGO and keeping that amount or more will get the reward. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the committed amount and just include there what you are sure you can maintain. Nothing happens if you allocate more than the committed ALGO once the governance period has started on 15 October. The rewards you earn are calculated by dividend the total number of tokens (70.5 million) by the number of committed ALGOs from all governors. You can also see the statistics in the following page: https://www.algorandstats.com/governance-period-5
Criticism
One of the points that some users have brought is that guaranteeing a risk-free return of 10% (around 2.5% every
quarter) cannibalizes other DeFi projects around Algorand. This was one of the topics in previous voting sessions, where
there were some initiatives to push different DeFi and FutureFi projects, giving some benefits to these projects.
In order to respond to this, one of the measures was to incentivize DeFi users in order to push different projects and allocate 7M ALGO tokens to DeFi governors. This was the option the Governance Foundation supported in the last Governance period.
The different 4 steps can be defined above for the fifth period
Key projects
As you may recall from this article, the main 3 pillars of the Algorand usage are:
- Payments
- NFTs
- Stablecoins
Most of the projects built on the Algorand network are related to DeFi and some of them
have been also developed thanks to grants coming the Algorand foundation. Knowing the most important topics, it’s also
the moment to talk about the most popular projects. Some of the most well-known projects using the Algorand network are
the following
1. Tinyman
Tinyman is a decentralized exchange where swappers trade different assets and poolers provide liquidity to the liquidity pools. What’s the objective of doing so? In this DEX, Poolers get a part of the fees that swappers pay when exchanging the different tokens.
2. Folks Finance
Folks Finance is built on top of the Algorand chain and it’s used to grant users the possibility lend and borrow assets in this platform. One of the benefits of this platform is that users can still participate in the Algorand governance session without renouncing to the liquidity. This is achieved with an ALGO token twin called gALGO with a 1 to 1 equivalent.
3. AlgoFI
AlgoFi is also a decentralized exchange and a lending protocol. By lending different assets, the owners can get rewarded with some interest. The borrowers of these assets deposit some assets as collateral. One of the advantages of this is that even if used as collateral, the ALGO tokens can be committed to the Algorand Governance.
4. AlgoSwap
AlgoSwap is another decentralized exchange which can be integrated into different dApps with just a few lines of code. This makes it a great integration tool enabling users to build their DEX platforms with minimum effort.
Due to its innovation, Folks Finance is one of the key `stars` supported by the Algorand Foundation
Wallets
Continuing with the next steps and the Governance process, it is time to focus on how to store our ALGO tokens. As you have seen, there are many projects around Algorand and many ways to commit your ALGO Tokens. Some of the most popular wallets out there are:
a) MyAlgo
MyAlgo is one of the most intuitive wallets out there, with some advance features such as signing multiple
transactions at the same time or transaction-grouping.
b) PeraWallet
PeraWallet is a decentralized wallet, easily used in both mobile and laptops, with ledger support too.
It’s easy to access the transaction history, holdings or NFTs.
c) AlgoSigner
AlgoSigner an extension for Chrome that can be used as an Algorand wallet. It lets users approve and
sign transactions that are generated by Algorand applications. The benefit of AlgoSigner is that there is you can grant
access to different dApps without giving them access you your keys and that it can be integrated into easily into DEX.
Related to getting ALGO, it is in most popular centralized exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase or Kraken. Therefore, it should not be a problem to get it you’re your preferred platform. As with crypto, it is recommended that as soon as you get it, if you are not trading it, you move it to one of the mentioned wallets in order to participate in the Goverance period or in your cold wallet.
Measures & Other
Related to the voting, the measures that will be proposed in the upcoming period are still not now and nothing is expected until November. Nonetheless, considering the latest proposals and ongoing projects around Algorand, it would not surprise that the voting sessions go in the direction of boosting the power of DeFi and FutureFi.
In this governance period, it seems that there are some people sending some small amounts to the different governors. They include some messages and are not coming from the official Algorand Foundation. The most important thing is not to click on them because they are spam messages.
Participation
Taking part in the Governance period, you are contributing to the future of finance. Algorand, one of the most sustainable chains, is proof of stake, and we have
seen the positive impact in the environment that this mechanism has with the Ethereum Merge. It’s also one of the
reasons for being named the Green Blockchain- Other benefits of the Algorand network are the low fees, speed and its
zero downtime, which cannot be said from other networks such as Solana. Therefore, if you want to be part of this
adventure, don’t forget to commit your ALGO before the deadline on 21 October.
Once the voting session is published, you should not forget to vote, since just users who voted for any of the options will be eligible to receive a stake of the 70.5 million ALGO tokens to be paid on beginning of January
