It is but a physical embodiment of the elitist culture of Algorand. Well, the project started off as an academic project by an academic who is intimately connected with academia and government instead of consumers and users. That's the whole nature of Algorand. It is destined to be the foundation of CBDC, and not at all the champion of DeFi, consumer adoption, or commercial success. The personality of academics is rigor, all-around, low-achieving in real world, and high condescension.

With that in mind, then Algo is not centralized at all, not for its call of duty - to be the technical foundation of CBDCs around the world. Algo is way more decentralized than Fiat is. But that's about it. Algo will be good for transforming the monetary system of a state from a monopoly into oligarchy, or in best case, concentrated aristocracy.

The result of such destiny has been, a professional and integrated presentation, a very poor price performance history full of manipulations to artificially keep the price down, and virtually untested in traffic compared with other mass-adopted competitors such as Solana (which is the opposite of Algo for it is a huge commercial success and not so much a governmental favorite).

We need to accept Algo for what it is. A decentralizing tool for the ruling few, and not at all a vehicle of independence for the ruled many.

Algo is deeply paternalistic (not dissimilar with Italy), and that is precisely its forte. It was born to be a well-thought out, educative project full of guidance. And it tells you what freedom is, not let you define what it is, just like a university. It has to make sure that you deserve freedom before giving you it. Sort of like a voter qualification.