The project co-founded by John Clarke and Owen Colegrove who worked on Citadel’s fixed income team before leaving to ideate a new decentralized finance solution. According to the team, the idea took shape in Y Combinator’s summer 2021 accelerator in March 2021. The project was launched on Algorand testnet in August 2021 as Algofi.
Algofi is a simple-to-use platform allows everyone from crypto-native traders to less tech-savvy retail users to earn high-interest yield on their cryptocurrency. To lower the barrier to entry, this lending protocol will also feature seamless on-ramps for fiat currency into crypto on Algorand, allowing users to begin earning yield on Algofi almost instantly.
The team said that it had selected Algorand because of its developer tools, high TPS, low transaction fees, and its proven success in in real-world financial use cases. Algofi co-founder John Clarke commented:
“Building on Algorand enables < $0.01 transactions compared to ~$15 or more on other incumbent networks. High costs and slow transactions make decentralized lending markets inaccessible to the majority of potential users, so going with a Layer-1 proof of stake protocol like Algorand just made sense. We’re also excited to be a part of Algorand’s burgeoning DeFi ecosystem alongside the likes of Yieldly, Tinyman and Algodex, where we already see a lot of synergies.”
