Algorand’s ALGO cryptocurrency prices have surged by 90% over the past seven days, crossing the US$2 mark and hit a two-year high of US$2.44 today, according to CoinGecko data. ALGO, ranked the 17th largest cryptocurrency by market value, has not seen such price heights since its launch in 2019.
Fast facts
- Algorand is an open-source, public, blockchain-based network that supports a wide range of applications. The blockchain, which was launched in June 2019, uses a “pure proof of stake” (PPoS) algorithm invented by its founder Silvio Micali, an MIT professor. According to Algorand, the PPoS algorithm allows every token holder to potentially become a block validator by staking ALGO. However, block validators are selected randomly and secretly for every new block added to the chain, which means that users have an equal chance to be chosen by the system, enabling the network to be decentralized.
- A few factors could be behind ALGO’s price rally. On Aug. 31, Koibanx, a Latin American asset tokenization and blockchain financial infrastructure company, announced that it had signed an agreement with El Salvador to develop its blockchain infrastructure on top of Algorand’s technology. “In being selected as the technology of choice for a project of this size, Algorand’s speed, scalability, stability and security are clear,” said Alexandra Clark, sales trader at the U.K.-based digital asset broker GlobalBlock, in an email.
- Algorand has also been expanding its use cases in decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), payments and central bank digital currencies. The blockchain currently has US$83 million in total value locked in DeFi protocols, according to DeFi Llama.
- In June, Arrington Capital, a digital asset management firm in blockchain-based capital markets, launched a US$100 million fund to invest in projects building on Algorand.