coindesk.com
Algorand, the native token of the layer 1 blockchain Algorand, logged its highest price in more than two years on Wednesday, defying a broader crypto market sell-off.
The ALGO tokens surged 34% on Coinbase to nearly $1.84 during trading hours in the U.S. on Wednesday, according to TradingView. That’s ALGO’s highest price level since June 2019, when its mainnet was launched. The latest returns are especially significant considering that prices for bitcoin, along with those for most other crypto assets, have fallen sharply since Tuesday.
Algorand is also the only token that has logged positive returns among the top 15 smart contract platforms by market capitalization, according to Messari’s smart contract platform screen. Tokens of other popular layer 1 blockchains such as Ethereum, Cardano, Solana and Polkadot have suffered as much as double-digit percentage declines in the past 24 hours.
Many on social media are calling Algorand the next Solana, since Solana has been grabbing headlines recently and its token has hit new all-time highs.
Data from CoinGecko shows that ALGO’s trading volume over the past 24 hours mostly comes from crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase.
ALGO’s daily sentiment also spiked more than 40 points in less than four hours on crypto sentiment tracker site Trade The Chain, according to Nick Mancini, research analyst at Trade The Chain on Twitter, signaling almost instantaneous trader interest in the asset. (Trade The Chain calculates a token’s sentiment by capturing data sources around the internet and contextualizing them to sentiment analysis.)
Similar to many recent industry favorites such as Solana and Terra, Algorand is a layer 1 blockchain project that’s considered a competitor to Ethereum. The blockchain, which was founded by MIT professor and Turing award winner Silvio Micali, uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. It is backed by several top venture capital firms including Multicoin Capital, Union Square Ventures and Digital Asset Capital Management.