Algorand Upgrade Unlocks Ease of Blockchain Application Development to Power Future of Finance with Algorand Virtual Machine (AVM)

New Approach to Smart Contract Development Enables Growing Algorand Developer Community to Easily Create Powerful, Fast, and Cost Effective Smart Contracts & dApps

June 30, 2021 — Boston, MA — Algorand continues to deliver innovation that is focused on performance, interoperability, and smart contracts to provide the technology required for organizations and developers to be successful in the new digital economy. With today’s protocol release, the Algorand Virtual Machine (AVM) improves smart contract development and ensures developers have the functionality needed to create powerful dApps, while making blockchain application development more accessible to the wider developer community.

Today’s protocol update comes on the heels of Algorand’s recent announcement of a new approach to smart contract development. Algorand is enabling developers to easily take advantage of the full power of the AVM by writing smart contracts in either Python or Reach, a simple javascript-like language.

The AVM supports smart contracts with Turing-complete languages, larger program sizes, more state, has many new additional opcodes, and offers developers the ability to use functions, loops, and recursion. The protocol enhancement includes many new features that developers can now use to build popular DeFi, NFTs, web3 dApps and other use-cases.

“Developers who have already written and deployed smart contracts on Algorand have interacted with earlier versions of the AVM through the use of Teal and have given us feedback which allowed us to rapidly iterate and improve the AVM,” said Paul Riegle, Chief Product Officer at Algorand. “We are excited for what this release opens up for the developer community and look forward to additional enhancements in the coming months.”

Some examples of functionalities that developers will be able to take advantage of using AVM include building an AMM that others can build on top of, sharing transaction fees which allows one party to pay for the transaction fees of others in an atomic transfer, and versatility in maximizing blockchain storage for applications. Other important features of this launch include the capability for mathematical operations as wide as 512 bits, enabling applications needing high precision, and easier porting of Ethereum contracts. With this AVM release, developers are propelling a larger ecosystem which interacts and communicates with other contracts, allowing for interactive smart contracts, while also having clearer and more compact dApps, and larger contracts.

For more technical details on this release, please check out the Dev Rel AVM Announcement. Updated developer documentation on the AVM and Algorand Smart Contracts can be found on Algorand’s Developer Portal.

https://www.algorand.com/resources/news/june2021_protocolupgrade_avm