According to PANews, a new advertisement released by the Algorand Foundation on YouTube on May 23 has sparked debate. The ad takes a swipe at competitor networks Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, implying they are not suitable for payments.
The ad, titled 'When Blockchain Meets the Real World, Only One Can Deliver,' features a supermarket checkout. Customers attempt to pay with three different cryptocurrency assets: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. In the ad, the customer trying to pay with Bitcoin is told to wait because the transaction takes 27 minutes. The customer using Ethereum is informed that the transaction requires a $112 fee, and the customer who chose Solana cannot complete the payment because the transaction keeps failing. The scene then switches to another checkout where a customer pays instantly with Algorand, accompanied by the caption 'Instant certainty, low cost, designed for the speed of life.' Political advisor and entrepreneur Anthony Scaramucci also makes a cameo at the end of the ad, asking how to join the Algorand checkout. However, some commentators later pointed out Scaramucci's hypocrisy, as he posted on social media just a few hours after the ad's release that his next product is 'SOL ETF.'
As of the writing of this article, the ad has been viewed over 700,000 times on social media, causing quite a stir in the crypto community. One commentator said, 'Algorand can run 21 transactions per second, but can't fund its main browser, yet spent over $100,000 on advertising. This is not the right way to do things.' Chainlink community liaison Zach Rynes said, 'This kind of marketing makes no sense.' However, not all responses were critical. Kernel Edge co-founder Hilmar Ingimundarson said the Algorand team's marketing was 'very on point,' and XRP cafe co-founder 'Vet' said that although the ad harshly criticized other blockchain networks, it was 'indeed very interesting.'