Algorand (ALGO) is a permissionless payments-focused Layer1 blockchain that is designed to help the creation of advanced decentralized applications along with complex financial primitives.
Is Algorand a Layer-2?
This means that every smart contract is directly adding traffic to the network, and too many of them can slow the network down. In order to avoid that, Algorand offers layer-2 smart contracts as well , where the contract will be executed “off-chain”.