The Algorand blockchain released a major technical upgrade designed to support cross-chain interoperability and allow developers to easily build complex decentralized applications (dapps) based on its network.

The upgrade introduces smart contract-to-contract calling, which allows applications to efficiently and trustlessly interact with other smart contract-based products. "Calling" refers to a smart contract function that returns the hash of the transaction that will be mined into the blockchain. Such functions can be executed by anyone, any time for any reason.

Previously, smart contracts on Algorand could be called only by a developer manually storing data in each contract’s local state, a tedious and difficult process. This upgrade, announced Thursday, allows a contract to automatically call another one directly.The development follows a $20 million incentive program from the Algorand Foundation focused on developer tooling and compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). That is a virtual computer accessible anywhere in the world through participating Ethereum nodes.“The power and composability of Algorand’s smart contract platform have transformed in recent months,” noted Paul Riegle, the company's chief product officer. “Developers are building versatile decentralized applications that have and will continue to disrupt a wide variety of industries,”A core feature of the upgrade is the introduction of Falcon Keys. These keys will, in the near future, be used to generate State Proofs, a new blockchain infrastructure allowing Algorand to be trustlessly accessed in low-power environments like mobile phones and smartwatches as well as on other blockchains.