The latest upgrade brings a more optimized developer experience without compromising performance or economic efficiencies
Algorand has introduced latest upgrade to its Layer-1 Smart Contracts language (TEAL), the first in a series of such enhancements. This consensus protocol upgrade is the 5th for Algorand since inception.
Smart Contracts on Algorand are built into Layer-1 and thus benefit from the network’s speed, security, and scalability with reduced settlement risk through trustless execution, low transaction fees, and flexible implementations needed to power complex applications.
The latest upgrade is based on direct feedback from the Algorand developer community to address and remove obstacles for viable mainstream adoption, mainly by ensuring application development is faster and more efficient. Algorand’s smart contract language, TEAL (Transaction Execution Approval Language), has been upgraded for a more optimized developer experience, while maintaining a Layer-1 language and increasing access and convenience, without compromising performance or economic efficiencies.
New features are comprised of the following distinct functionality:
Complete access to transactions in the Atomic Transfer capability
Better application permissions in addressing user demand using CreatorAddress
New opcodes addressing demands from TEAL users and TEAL compilers
A concise way to express requirements
The ability to manipulate the stack and data values in a more concise way
The ability to combine Atomic Transfers together
With these new features, the following are now available for developers:
Convenience functions for examining other assets and stateful smart contracts
Functions to support better stack manipulation
Support for manipulating data with bit and byte functions
Improved conditional logic capabilities
In expanding the possibilities to write more efficient smart contracts, compilers and high-level languages are empowered with this TEAL upgrade as new gateways for development. Reach, a development platform, is one such example of tooling available to Algorand developers that lowers the barrier to entry, while enabling blockchain developers to build more sophisticated applications.
“Algorand continues to deliver on innovation, and it is exciting to see TEAL opening new opportunities for the growing developer community. As a partner of Algorand empowering developers to leverage their high performing blockchain, it is a major milestone that anything written on Reach can now work on Algorand,” says Chris Swenor, Founder & CEO, Reach.
Examples of applications that are now easier and more efficient to write on Algorand include:
Multiple Raffle Applications, From Traditional to a FOMO 3D Raffle
A Rent-Seeking Auction Application
NFT Generator: A Smart, Yield Generating NFT Application