Yahya 
Algorand is a layer-1 blockchain that is owned by the Algorand Foundation, and the organization has recently launched a provocative advertisement campaign against Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. The ad that began running on May 23 and titled “When blockchains meet the real world, only one delivers,” disparages these networks by suggesting that they are too slow, too costly, or too unreliable for payments.
The Ad and Its Message
The advertisement is on YouTube, and it features a supermarket with a checkout procedure where customers try to pay with Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana. The Bitcoin is criticized for taking 27 minutes to complete the transaction, Ethereum for costing $112 in fees, and Solana for transaction failures. On the other hand, Algorand is presented as a smooth-sailing solution, with the ability to process payments in a matter of seconds and with minimal charges, with the slogan, ‘Instant finality. Low Fees. Built for life.’
Finally, political consultant and entrepreneur Anthony Scaramucci appears in the last few seconds of the ad and jokingly asks how he can get in the Algorand checkout line. This created more social media attention, especially when Scaramucci tweeted about a possible “$SOL ETF” after the ad was released, causing more hypocrisy.
Mixed Reactions from the Crypto Community
The ad was immediately shared online and received more than 700,000 views on X Within a few days, people had mixed opinions on the advertisement – some appreciated the company’s risk-taking while others did not like it. One of the users whose posts have been shared in the X community wrote: “Algorand runs 21 TPS, can’t fund its main explorer but drops $100k+ on an ad. This is not the way guys.” This is related to the previous experience of Algorand ceasing the functioning of its block explorer AlgoExplorer.
Chainlink community liaison Zach Rynes opined, “This kind of marketing makes no sense to me.” Regular people will just shrug and move on with a negative impression of crypto: ‘yeah crypto is bad’, without realizing it was an advertisement for it.
On the other hand, some heads in the industry endorsed the ad. The co-founder of Kernel Edge, Hilmar Ingimundarson said that the marketing was right on the mark. The co-founder of XRP cafe also agreed with the humor though he noted that other networks were criticized.
Market Impact and Financial Figures
To the surprise of many, the ad did not sway the market much in Algorand’s favor. For instance, in the DefiLlama report, Algorand has a TVL of $96 million, while Ethereum has a TVL of $65 billion and Solana has $4.8 billion. Algorand’s native token, ALGO, was down by 2% on the day to $0.182, with the remaining 95% still below the 2019 record high as per the CoinGecko website.
The campaign has elicited debate among the crypto community especially on the usefulness and acceptability of negative advertising in the space.