For anyone looking for the quick response on what Algorand will be doing with its tokens, the answer is simple:

(a) We will be holding our founder’s tokens for the long term and will not be selling them.

(b) We will use our founder’s tokens to participate in consensus and assist in securing the network, though we will never represent more than 49% of the voting.

(c) We will use our founder’s tokens to support the ecosystem and encourage development.

For those looking to understand why, please keep reading.

We take a very long term view with respect to success of the network and our role in supporting the network. Algorand is the first truly public, permissionless, Pure Proof-of-Stake platform. At launch, liveness and security of the network is critical and our tokens need to be online in order to provide that support. Our tokens will be used in that way and we will maintain our token stake for at least the first several years.

Additionally, as use cases emerge in the ecosystem we want to be supportive of anyone building on the platform and will use tokens to encourage development, always with respect to local law.

Lastly, our focus is on responsible decentralization. We will both hold our tokens long term as well as actively seek to reduce our influence on the network as it decentralizes.

Below is a more detailed view on our thinking.

Responsible Decentralization

We want to support the goal of true decentralization of the Algorand public network, and the Algo currency. With any decentralized network, the risk of malicious centralization is always highest at the early stages. We will use our tokens to help ensure the stability and safety of the network during these early stages. It is important to note 1) we will never participate with more than 49% of the Circulating Supply, and will actively seek to reduce our influence as quickly as possible as we do not want to control the network, and 2) our influence will naturally drop as tokens are injected into the network (so while we will be holding our tokens, they will represent a declining percentage of circulating supply as new tokens enter circulation).

Please visit the Algorand Foundation website to better understand their plans around launch and for detailed Algorand Token Economics.

Ecosystem Growth

We intend to aid and accelerate the growth of the broader ecosystem in as many ways as we can. This will include using tokens from time to encourage projects building infrastructure, new applications on the Algorand network, and supporting research initiatives.

We truly appreciate all of the support we have received from so many of you in the community!

Steven Kokinos

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