Today marks a big milestone for the Algorand Core Team and Algorand Foundation. They conducted the first on-chain Algorand auction and it came off without a hitch. It took a lot to get here and so: huge congratulations to everyone involved! Among other things this means that the Algorand Mainnet is now live and you can use the Algoexplorer to see what’s going on there. The team also recently open sourced all the code.
The auctions themselves are meaningful in several ways. They show off a capability that is built natively into the Algorand blockchain. This capability will be useful for all sorts of auctions, not just of Algos but of other items. This is a novel way of combining price discovery with ongoing funding for the development of Algorand. New auctions will be conducted with some frequency and you can learn more about them, including the Dutch auction mechanism and the refund policy.
This launch is just the beginning though. Algorand has a deep technology roadmap. So stay tuned for more!