> With traditional cryptocurrencies, users compete to solve equations that validate blocks, with the first to solve the equations receiving funds. As the network scales, this slows down transaction processing times. Algorand uses a “proof-of-stake” concept to more efficiently verify blocks and better enable new users join. For every block, a representative verification “committee” is selected. Users with more money — or stake — in the network have higher probability of being selected. To join the network, users verify each certificate, not every transaction.

Seems they've moved to a Proof of Stake solution, rather than a Proof of Work. Ethereum was meant to switch to it, iirc, but never did.

Exactly my thought. Joining is just a one-time problem, staying up to date and mining are the big energy and scalability killer. I somehow assumed that Bitcoin already has some functionality (inherited from Merkle Trees) in place that you don't have to download the whole chain?

The scalability problem is fortunately amenable to piecemeal solutions. Some research teams will focus on validation (i.e. novel proof of ____ approaches), others will focus on block propagation, some on bootstrapping (like the OP), novel hash structures for transaction aggregation, etc.

It would be difficult to come out with a new approach that simultaneously advanced the state of the art in every possible scalability dimension. Each individual approach might give a 2-10X improvement on that particular aspect, but it also means that the "bottleneck" keeps shifting, and trending towards scalability.

Source: I'm an academic blockchain researcher.

From the conclusions I've read in the paper I understand that this new cryptocurrency reduces the join bandwidth and blockchain size.

https://people.csail.mit.edu/nickolai/papers/leung-vault-epr...