Layer-1 blockchain network Algorand has criticized Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana in its latest advertisement, calling the three inefficient for everyday use.
The Algorand Foundation released a new ad on May 23, titled “When Blockchain Meets the Real World, Only One Thing Can Happen,” which features three shoppers at a supermarket checkout, each of whom is about to pay with one of the aforementioned cryptocurrencies.
When speaking to a customer trying to pay with Bitcoin, the cashier states that he has to wait 27 minutes for the transaction to go through, a direct indication of the often long wait times for Bitcoin transactions to be completed.
A customer who paid with Ethereum was charged $112, with the cashier informing them that gas fees would be higher due to it being a peak time for the network.
Meanwhile, the Solana man, played by Algorand CTO John Woods, witnesses multiple failed transactions, citing challenges from the network's past outages.
The ad ends with one of Algorand's backers, entrepreneur Anthony Scaramucci, appearing to ask how people can join the Algorand line, before showing shoppers completing payments instantly with significantly lower fees.
The ad had been viewed over 740,000 times at the time of publication and drew mixed reactions from the community: while many users appreciated the ad, some praised the move.
One user criticized Algorand for funding expensive advertising but not Argo Explorer, which will be shutting down in January 2024. Interestingly, the reason behind the move, as stated by the Foundation, was “lack of funding.”
“Algorand is running at 21 TPS and can't fund the main explorer but they've put over $100k into advertising,” wrote another user, echoing a similar sentiment.
Cryptocurrency commentator MartyParty also criticized the ad, claiming that the claims made about Algorand's efficiency are untrue.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency analyst fiskantes.lens commented that running a negative ad campaign about a competitor at this early stage in the recruitment cycle is a “very low-level move.”
He added that any “high TPS ghost chain” could make the same claims as Algorand, but the real test would come when it was actually used.
Scaramucci also came under fire on X after some users called him hypocritical for a May 24 post predicting the Solana ETF just hours before the ad was released.
At the time of writing, Algorand’s native token, ALGO, was down 3.1% over the past 24 hours and is down 95% from its all-time high of $3.56 hit in June 2019.
