Interview | Algorand bets on gamification to grow retail community

Algorand’s head of strategy and marketing, Marc Vanlerberghe, explains how the network plans to take on other DeFi giants.

Algorand is launching a major campaign that hopes to close the awareness gap when it comes to its technical capabilities, UX, and community. The 13-week gamified campaign, set to start on September 22, hopes to engage Web3 users and demonstrate what the network can do.

Marc Vanlerberghe, Algorand’s Head of Strategy and Marketing, explained to crypto.news the inner workings and the goals of the campaign, as well as some of the advantages he believes Algorand has over other chains.

Crypto.news: You’ve recently unveiled an on-chain rewards campaign. What are some elements that set it apart?

Marc Vanlerberghe: We’ve designed the campaign differently. It’s completely gamified — a 13-week experience where users earn points instead of direct payouts. We’re avoiding “do this transaction and get $5” mechanics, because those just attract farmers who move on once the rewards dry up. Instead, users earn points that could translate into prizes.

The second key element is community building. Real stickiness comes from people feeling part of the Algorand (ALGO) ecosystem, not from one-off payments. A lot of the campaign is focused on onboarding users into the Algorand community.

What is more, the entire campaign is being run on-chain. Points, referrals, and game mechanics are all recorded on-chain. Even the prize winners are selected by the chain itself, using Algorand’s verifiable random function.

Our consensus mechanism is built on VRF — a lottery system where every algo you stake is like a lottery ticket. Every round, block proposers are selected randomly. The more algos you stake, the higher your chance.

What makes this secure is that each node runs the lottery locally. When a node wins, it proposes a block and attaches cryptographic proof. Only then does the network know who the proposer is — and by that time, it’s too late for an attacker to act.

It’s a very elegant design: lightweight, resilient, and highly decentralized. You don’t need big data centers to run a node — I run one on a mini-PC. Anyone can do it, which is the ultimate proof of decentralization. If only data centers could run nodes, you wouldn’t have censorship resistance. But with Algorand, you do.

CN: What are your main goals with the rewards program?

MV: The goal is to attract more retail users to Algorand. We’re not targeting Web2 novices who’ve never touched blockchain. Instead, we’re aiming for people who already have experience on other chains, so they can see what Algorand offers. Over the past six months, we’ve introduced major changes, so we think it’s worth highlighting them.

At the beginning of this year, we rolled out staking rewards for the first time in Algorand’s history. We’re now compensating stakers and node runners for helping secure the network, which has greatly boosted decentralization. We have close to 3,000 node runners today, making us probably the second most decentralized network after Ethereum.

Alongside that, we’ve expanded staking options: running a node, liquid staking, delegated staking, and other methods of participation. We want to communicate these opportunities more broadly. In addition to staking, we’ve seen a wave of new projects launch in the past six months.

For example, a prediction market called Alpha Arcade recently went live. It’s the first prediction market to offer parlays, which makes it very unique. We also saw the launch of Haystack, a mobile-first DeFi app, and new AI agent projects. Beyond that, more stablecoins are being introduced, along with tokenization initiatives — such as Midas, which is tokenizing U.S. Treasuries, and Lofty, which is doing real estate tokenization.

With all this activity, we want to ensure people are aware of what’s happening on Algorand. The campaign’s goal is to introduce retail users to these apps while showing why Algorand is a mature blockchain that provides a strong user experience.

CN: From a user perspective, what’s the selling point of Algorand compared to other Layer-1s or Layer-2s?

MV: As you may know, Algorand has always focused on underlying technology. But what matters most is how that translates into user experience. For example, we don’t fork, we don’t have transaction failures, and we offer instant finality. Users don’t need to wait for confirmations. We think this makes Algorand one of the smoothest DeFi experiences available, and we want people to try it for themselves.

Algorand, it feels different. Transactions finalize in under three seconds. They never fail, never roll back, and you don’t have to wait long for confirmation times. It’s smooth, almost Web2-like. We want users to experience that for themselves: a chain that never fails, never forks, and where finality is instant.

The system is also very secure. That’s the beauty of Algorand’s consensus. Since attackers never know which proposer will be selected, they can’t target them ahead of time. And once a block is proposed, it’s already too late to interfere.

It’s also very easy to run a node. I run mine on a mini-PC — you don’t need specialized hardware or massive bandwidth. That accessibility has made Algorand one of the most decentralized networks.

CN: Given these advantages, why isn’t Algorand bigger?

Well, Algorand is actually quite big. If you look at the facts, over 3 billion transactions processed, strong traffic, and active users. The perception may lag, but the reality is very strong. This may be because we never played the hype game.

Algorand has always focused on building robust technology and attracting real users. We don’t overhype announcements. That may have hurt perception, but it’s not due to a lack of capability or adoption. Now, with this campaign, we’re doubling down on communication to close that gap.