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Algorand for Beginners 1 – How to set up a development environment for Algorand? | Nextrope Academy

Paulina Lewandowska

27 Sep 2022
Algorand for Beginners 1 – How to set up a development environment for Algorand? | Nextrope Academy

In this article we start our series of articles that form the Algorand course for beginners. From the series of articles you will learn, among other things, how to set up a development environment for Algorand, how to deploy a smart contract on the Algorand network of your choice, how to write a simple smart contract, and what tools and frameworks you can use to work with the Algorand blockchain.

Algorand is a "green blockchain" launched in 2019, with the overarching goal of solving the blockchain trilemma through transaction speed, security, and a consensus algorithm that ensures full decentralization of the network.

Table of Contents

A list of the necessary tools and components:

  • Visual Studio Code
  • Python 3.6 or later
  • pyTeal library and py-teal-sdk
  • Docker Desktop
  • Algorand Sandbox
  • Skeleton project repository

Visual Studio Code installation

Visual Studio Code will be your IDE, with the help of this program you will be able to write application code.

Visual Studio Code (known as VS Code) is a free and open source text editor from Microsoft. VS Code is available for operating systems: Windows, Linux and macOS. Although the editor is relatively lightweight, it includes several advanced features that have made VS Code one of the most popular development environment tools in recent times.

  • Go to https://code.visualstudio.com/download  and download the installation file compatible with your operating system.
  • Install Visual Studio Code on your computer and proceed to the next step in this tutorial.

Installing Python

Python is a general-purpose, high-level interpreted programming language commonly used for web development, data analysis and automation.

One way to write smart contract logic for the Algorand network is with the Python library pyTeal ( https://pyteal.readthedocs.io/en/stable/ ), which allows you to write smart contract logic in python and compile the code into the TEAL code required by the AVM (Algorand Virtual Machine).

  • TEAL is an assembly language syntax for specifying a program that is eventually converted to AVM (Algorand Virtual Machine) byte code.
  • In VS Code, go to the "Extensions" tab used to install add-ons for Our IDE.

In the search bar, type "Python" and install Python extension for VS Code.

The next step is to install the interpreter for Python. This process varies depending on the operating system you are using.

Windows:

  • Download the installer for the language version of your choice from the official Python website https://www.python.org/downloads/ then go through the standard installation process,
  • An alternative to the above method is to install Python from the Microsoft Store, all the latest versions of python are available there.

MacOS:

  • To install the Python interpreter on macOS, we need to use the Homebrew package manager,
  • If Homebrew is already installed, open the command line and enter the command brew install python3.

On Linux distributions, the Python 3.x interpreter is installed by default.

After installing Python, it's a good idea to check that everything went as expected. To see the currently installed version of the interpreter, enter the command at the command line

python -v

Installing Docker Desktop

Docker Desktop is an easy-to-install application for macOS, Linux and Windows environments that allows you to create and share containerized applications and microservices.

Docker Desktop is required by the Algorand sandbox, a toolkit provided by the Algorand developers that is, a must-have, for any Algorand developer no matter what his or her level of expertise. Without Docker Desktop, you won't be able to run the most important tool for Algorand developers.

Installation files for each environment are available here.

After installation, Docker Desktop will start automatically.

Downloading Algorand Sandbox

Algorand sandbox is a set of tools that facilitate communication and interaction with the Algorand blockchain. Components of the sandbox include indexer, goal and algod.

With sandbox you can run betanet, testnet and mainnet in network mode, create tokens, nodes, execute transactions, create wallet addresses, check account balances, or deploy your applications on the network of your choice.

  • Go to https://github.com/algorand/sandbox and copy the link to the sandbox repository
  • Then open the command line on your computer, navigate to the desired location and enter the command git clone <repository address>
  • The sandbox repository will be cloned to your computer and you can start using it right away

Downloading the repository skeleton

To get started with Algorand easily enough, you should use the project skeleton, prepared by the Algorand development team.

Running Python (venv)

Python venv is a virtual Python environment in which the Python interpreter, libraries and scripts installed in it are isolated from those installed in other virtual environments and (by default) any libraries installed in "system" Python, i.e. one that is installed as part of the operating system.

To run a virtual Python environment follow a few simple steps:

  • Open the previously downloaded project skeleton in VS Code and start the terminal,
  • Make sure you are in the root directory of the project and enter the command python -m venv venv, the python virtual environment will be created with the name "venv",
  • Then depending on the operating system you are using, enter another command to activate the virtual environment:
  • MacOS: source ./venv/bin/activate, 
  • Windows: source ./venv/Scripts/activate,
  • To make sure you are working on the correct virtual environment, check that the name of your virtual environment appears before the command line in the terminal.

Installing additional libraries

In the example project in the requirements.txt folder, there are additional libraries that you need to install to start writing code for your application using the pyTeal library.

PyTeal is a Python language library for constructing Algorand smart contracts. It was created as a community project. The main goal of this library is to make writing contracts even easier and more accessible for programmers who prefer programming in Python.

  • To install additional libraries into your virtual environment you need to put is in the project's root directory in the requirements.txt file,
  • The most important libraries that we will use when writing smart contracts for Algorand are pyTeal and py-teal-sdk,
  • Once you have the requirements.txt file enter the following command to start installing additional libraries, pip install -r ./requirements.txt .

Linking your project to a sandbox

When creating your blockchain application, after some time you may need, for example, to deploy it on a network of your choice. For this task you will need the Algorand sandbox, but first you need to properly connect your project to the sandbox by pointing it to the location of Our Project, among other things.

To do this, navigate to the folder where the Algorand sandbox you downloaded earlier is located and follow the instructions below:

  • Open the docker-compose.yml file and in the services.algod section enter the additional volumes key with three additional parameters:
  • -type: bind,
  • source: <path to your project>,
  • target: /data,
  • example in the graphic below:

Starting the Algorand sandbox

To interact with the Algorand blockchain using the sandbox, you must first launch the sandbox container in Docker Desktop application.

To do so, follow the instructions below:

Open the command line on your computer and navigate to the folder of the sandbox you downloaded earlier,

Then enter the command ./sandbox up to start the sandbox container and place it in Docker,

By default, the sandbox will be started with betanet support. To run the sandbox with support for another network enter  ./sandbox up testnet or ./sandbox up mainnet .

Summary

With all the above steps completed, you have a ready-made environment to start working with the pyTeal library. You can now start writing your first smart contract, and deploy it on the network of your choice.

In the next article, we will introduce you to writing the simplest smart contract, along with deploying it on the Algorand network.

Tagi

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Aethir Tokenomics – Case Study

Kajetan Olas

22 Nov 2024
Aethir Tokenomics – Case Study

Authors of the contents are not affiliated to the reviewed project in any way and none of the information presented should be taken as financial advice.

In this article we analyze tokenomics of Aethir - a project providing on-demand cloud compute resources for the AI, Gaming, and virtualized compute sectors.
Aethir aims to aggregate enterprise-grade GPUs from multiple providers into a DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network). Its competitive edge comes from utlizing the GPUs for very specific use-cases, such as low-latency rendering for online games.
Due to decentralized nature of its infrastructure Aethir can meet the demands of online-gaming in any region. This is especially important for some gamer-abundant regions in Asia with underdeveloped cloud infrastructure that causes high latency ("lags").
We will analyze Aethir's tokenomics, give our opinion on what was done well, and provide specific recommendations on how to improve it.

Evaluation Summary

Aethir Tokenomics Structure

The total supply of ATH tokens is capped at 42 billion ATH. This fixed cap provides a predictable supply environment, and the complete emissions schedule is listed here. As of November 2024 there are approximately 5.2 Billion ATH in circulation. In a year from now (November 2025), the circulating supply will almost triple, and will amount to approximately 15 Billion ATH. By November 2028, today's circulating supply will be diluted by around 86%.

From an investor standpoint the rational decision would be to stake their tokens and hope for rewards that will balance the inflation. Currently the estimated APR for 3-year staking is 195% and for 4-year staking APR is 261%. The rewards are paid out weekly. Furthermore, stakers can expect to get additional rewards from partnered AI projects.

Staking Incentives

Rewards are calculated based on the staking duration and staked amount. These factors are equally important and they linearly influence weekly rewards. This means that someone who stakes 100 ATH for 2 weeks will have the same weekly rewards as someone who stakes 200 ATH for 1 week. This mechanism greatly emphasizes long-term holding. That's because holding a token makes sense only if you go for long-term staking. E.g. a whale staking $200k with 1 week lockup. will have the same weekly rewards as person staking $1k with 4 year lockup. Furthermore the ATH staking rewards are fixed and divided among stakers. Therefore Increase of user base is likely to come with decrease in rewards.
We believe the main weak-point of Aethirs staking is the lack of equivalency between rewards paid out to the users and value generated for the protocol as a result of staking.

Token Distribution

The token distribution of $ATH is well designed and comes with long vesting time-frames. 18-month cliff and 36-moths subsequent linear vesting is applied to team's allocation. This is higher than industry standard and is a sign of long-term commitment.

  • Checkers and Compute Providers: 50%
  • Ecosystem: 15%
  • Team: 12.5%
  • Investors: 11.5%
  • Airdrop: 6%
  • Advisors: 5%

Aethir's airdrop is divided into 3 phases to ensure that only loyal users get rewarded. This mechanism is very-well thought and we rate it highly. It fosters high community engagement within the first months of the project and sets the ground for potentially giving more-control to the DAO.

Governance and Community-Led Development

Aethir’s governance model promotes community-led decision-making in a very practical way. Instead of rushing with creation of a DAO for PR and marketing purposes Aethir is trying to make it the right way. They support projects building on their infrastructure and regularly share updates with their community in the most professional manner.

We believe Aethir would benefit from implementing reputation boosted voting. An example of such system is described here. The core assumption is to abandon the simplistic: 1 token = 1 vote and go towards: Votes = tokens * reputation_based_multiplication_factor.

In the attached example, reputation_based_multiplication_factor rises exponentially with the number of standard deviations above norm, with regard to user's rating. For compute compute providers at Aethir, user's rating could be replaced by provider's uptime.

Perspectives for the future

While it's important to analyze aspects such as supply-side tokenomics, or governance, we must keep in mind that 95% of project's success depends on demand-side. In this regard the outlook for Aethir may be very bright. The project declares $36M annual reccuring revenue. Revenue like this is very rare in the web3 space. Many projects are not able to generate any revenue after succesfull ICO event, due to lack fo product-market-fit.

If you're looking to create a robust tokenomics model and go through institutional-grade testing please reach out to contact@nextrope.com. Our team is ready to help you with the token engineering process and ensure your project’s resilience in the long term.

Tagi

Nextrope Partners with Hacken to Enhance Blockchain Security

Miłosz

21 Nov 2024
Nextrope Partners with Hacken to Enhance Blockchain Security
Location: Gdynia, Poland
Date: November 12, 2024

Nextrope announces a strategic partnership with Hacken, a renowned blockchain security auditor. It marks a significant step in delivering reliable decentralized solutions. After several successful collaborations resulting in flawless smart contract audits, the alliance solidifies the synergy between Nextrope's innovative blockchain development and Hacken's top-tier security auditing services. Together, we aim to set new benchmarks, ensuring that security is an integral part of blockchain technology.

Strengthening Blockchain Security

The partnership aims to fortify the security protocols within blockchain ecosystems. By integrating Hacken's comprehensive security audits with Nextrope's cutting-edge blockchain solutions, we are poised to offer unparalleled security features in our projects.

"Blockchain security should never be an afterthought"

"Our partnership with Hacken underscores our dedication to embedding security at the core of our blockchain solutions. Together, we're building a safer future for the industry."

said Mateusz Mach, CEO of Nextrope

About Nextrope

Nextrope is a forward-thinking blockchain development house specializing in creating innovative solutions for businesses worldwide. With a team of experienced developers and blockchain experts, Nextrope delivers high-quality, scalable, and secure blockchain applications tailored to meet the unique needs of each client.

About Hacken

Hacken is a leading blockchain security auditor known for its rigorous smart contract audits and security assessments. With a mission to make the industry safer, Hacken provides complex security services that help companies identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in their applications.

Looking Ahead

As a joint mission, both Nextrope and Hacken are committed to continuous innovation. We look forward to the exciting opportunities this partnership will bring and are eager to implement a more secure blockchain environment for all.

For more information, please contact:

Nextrope

Hacken

Join us on our journey to deliver top-notch blockchain tech and a safer future for the industry!

Tagi