ALGO tokens are up as markets respond positively to Algorand’s newly announced plan to become an alternative venue for the white-hot decentralized finance (DeFi) space.

• CoinGecko data shows the price of ALGO tokens has increased from $0.53 to nearly $0.65, a jump of approximately 20% in the past 24 hours.
• That translates into an $80 million increase in ALGO's market cap to $515 million.
• ALGO peaked at over $0.70 last Friday, the highest it's been in over a year. The token has a way to go before it approaches its all-time high of $3.56, reached in June 2019.

• This comes after Algorand's founder, Silvio Micali, unveiled a new set of smart contract capabilities that lowered transaction fees and ultimately make Algorand a faster and more efficient venue for DeFi-related activities – such as yield farming.
• The digital asset industry has become completely enthralled by the sudden rise in the DeFi space over the past year – some projects have been able to attract hundreds of millions of dollars in investment in as little as 12 hours.
• The total value locked in DeFi applications went past the $6 billion milestone at the week beginning, according to DeFi Pulse.

See also: Algorand and Blockstack Are Building a Multi-Chain Smart Contract Language